[
multi-media performance]

This 25-minute dance performance is a poignant exploration prompted by questions about how the stories and memories of conquered people are ghosted and filtered by the survivors. Inspirit my research on the history of Dunhuang Buddhist Caves, the performance serves as a reflective journey into the layers of narrative and remembrance. Through dance, we unravel the complexities of conquest and survival, inviting audiences to contemplate the echoes of history that reverberate through time.

In 1892, the Russian consul of Kashgar purchased a document in an unknown language. In 1908, two German scholars deciphered the language using a bilingual text and suggested that it belonged to the people of the Tocharoi, known to the Greeks, probable ancestors of the Kushan empire.

For a century, the discovered texts have been analyzed and compared: instead of one, three related languages were marked out. We know how the languages had been evaluated through their history, how many cases they had, and how they might have sounded. However, the people who spoke those languages for more than a thousand years did not leave much about themselves or the causes of their disappearance.

As descendants of survivors, we tend to learn from the stories of our forefathers. However, their survival while others faced extermination could be a complete coincidence. The story is often written by the winners, but how can we trust their words if we are not able to hear evidence from those who could not ‘make it’? Does it give us the right to pretend that the truth must be found in the words of a killer, if a victim is not able to testify against it?

Collaborators

David Hampson (music), Vasily Betin (visual effects/ lighting design), Horacio Ortiz (poetry, translated by Gao Jie and Liu Xiao), Gao Jie (performer), Kseniia Konovets (performer), Anastasia Potievskaya (performer), Wu Jialu (performer), Liu Xiao (performer), Yuan Yang (performer).