Living Dance Studio

This piece is about the Great Famine from 1959-1961. The first is that this one was borne out of the process behind the Folk Memory Project, in which memory of history is being filmed. The Folk Memory Project enfolds 20+ volunteers into their roles as »history seekers«, as they descend on over 10 provinces, to dozens of villages, interviewing over four hundred »witnesses of history«. These folks who come from the most average of circumstances and who lived through the Famine have become the most important element; they are the living history, and they join us onstage through these videos. Even more interesting, the participants of the documentary project include documentary filmmakers, dancers, students, and even villagers who lived through the famine themselves. Most of them were born after 1980, and had little to no understanding of the famine before embarking on this project. Now, not only have they become ‘history seekers’, but onstage, their experience of pursuing history will collide with the memories they’ve caught through their lenses.