Wings Against the Veil of Light

2024

Crickets chirp by rubbing their wings together, with one wing acting as a file and the other as a scraper. The frequency and pattern of these chirps change with varying temperatures and the crickets‘ intentions. Inspired by this natural mechanism, we designed wings using a zipper and a ruler, enabling dancers to mimic the chirping of crickets. Our performance integrates Butoh dance, a practice that allows us to empty our human shell and let other beings live inside. The narrative explores the impact of light pollution on crickets, illustrating how male crickets mistakenly chirp at inappropriate times, leading to a disconnect with female crickets who are not ready to mate.

Director: Jiabao Li

Co-Directors: Rosemary Candelario, Joy Deng

Producer: Jiabao Li

Concept: Joy Deng, Jiabao Li

Choreographer: Rosemary Candelario

Cricket wing design and fabrication: Joy Deng, Annan Zuo, Anya Koehne

Butoh dancers: Rosemary Candelario, Jonathan Pattiwael, Irving Maldonado (Chukki), Katherine Vaughn, and Bayleigh Breanne

Music composed and performed by: Richard D. Hall

Costume design: Siyu Fang

Set design: Ceren Ozgen

Makeup artists: Anya Koehne, Ceren Ozgen, Siyu Fang, Maya Kotsovolos

Photographer: Christopher Davila

Image courtesy: The Contemporary Austin. Photograph by Levi Thompson

Performance video recorded and edited by Essentials Creative

Full event schedule on website of The Contemporary Austin, Laguna Gloria

Cricket Butoh Notation

Led by Jiabao Li and Rosemary Candelario, adapted from Hijikata’s bug score.

Butoh dancers use scores like this to prompt their movement. 

Savor the cricket you just tasted on the edge of your margarita.

The cricket enters your mouth, your throat, your belly.

It comes out from your anus, now come back to life, crawling on you.

One cricket crawling on your back,

A second cricket is creeping down from the left side of your neck to your back,

A third cricket is wriggling up along your inner thigh,

A fourth cricket is crawling down from your left shoulder to your chest,

A fifth cricket …

Ah, where is it?

You’re so itchy, here and there. You can’t stand still.

Itchiness is shoving you around,

Itchiness under your chin, itchiness at the base of your ears, itchiness around your elbows, itchiness around your kneecaps, itchiness around your waist,

Ah! There are five hundred of them!

Around your eyes, around your mouth, in your ears, between your fingers

Five thousand cricket

A cricket on every hair,

A cricket in every pore,

From there two hundred thousand cricket are crawling down into your guts and drilling them voraciously,

Having eaten them up the cricket are coming out of your body through the pores,

Now they are eating the space around your body,

Now cricket are full of outer space,

The whole universe is being eaten up by cricket.

One million crickets fill in the shape of you, they crawl, they chirp

You become a cricket