Taiwanese choreographer Huang Yi (黃翊) and his industrial robot “Kuka” debuted in Japan on Sunday with a human-machine dance performance, as part of the “We Taiwan” exhibition at the Kansai Expo in Osaka.
The performance, which was part of a government-sponsored program to showcase Taiwanese cultural output, featured Huang dancing in sync with Kuka. They have toured 47 cities since 2012.
This was the first time the show had been staged in Japan, and a Japanese-language version of the audio description was recorded by a local voice actor.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Culture
The team previously produced an English-language version for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in the US.
Speaking at a post-show talk, Huang said that incorporating an audio description was a way to “expand the possibilities for artistic participation.”
“If art can help more people get closer to it, and allow visually impaired people to participate through audio description, then that is one way art, which is often seen as useless, can actually help people,” he said.
Performing in Japan felt like “a dream come true,” Huang said, adding that the idea of dancing with a robot came from the Japanese manga Doraemon.
He also showed the audience a childhood drawing of Doraemon that had been kept by his father.
“Although my life was difficult when I was young, Doraemon made me believe that technology could change one’s destiny,” Huang said, adding that the character’s use of gadgets to help others influenced the way he created performances involving interaction with machines.
After working with Kuka for more than a decade, it feels “a little like I have transferred part of my soul” into the robot, Huang said.
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