Artist In Transit
Chen Chun Han
15 – 29 July 2025
Kami dengan senang hati menyambut Chen Chun Han sebagai Artist in Transit dalam perjalanannya di Jawa. Kami mengundangnya untuk singgah di Solo, di mana ia berbagi praktik artistiknya melalui sebuah lokakarya dan diskusi seniman. Selama berada di Solo, Chen Chun Han memanfaatkan waktunya untuk menjelajahi tari-tari tradisional serta mengunjungi berbagai situs budaya di Solo dan sekitarnya, sebagai bagian dari proses riset artistiknya.
Chen Chun Han berlatih dan berkembang dalam komunitas teater dan tari. Praktiknya berangkat dari kepedulian terhadap dialog tentang bagaimana dialog terbangun, bergeser, atau justru terhenti, serta kesediaan manusia untuk saling berjumpa. Karya-karya terbarunya banyak menyoroti isu identitas budaya dan rasa memiliki, dengan menelaah posisi individu di dalam lanskap sosial dan politik yang lebih luas.
Ia secara khusus tertarik pada dinamika antara wacana, pengalaman, dan emosi. Chen Chun Han kerap merujuk pada pilihan George Orwell atas kalimat “He loves Big Brother” sebagai penutup novel distopia 1984—sebuah pernyataan cinta yang justru menutup kisah penindasan—sebagai contoh bagaimana bahasa, kekuasaan, dan afeksi dapat saling bertaut secara problematis.
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We were pleased to welcome Chen Chun Han as an Artist in Transit during his journey through Java. Invited to stay in Solo, Chen Chun Han shared his practice through a workshop and an artist talk, while using his time to immerse himself in the city’s cultural landscape. During his stay, he explored traditional Javanese dances and visited cultural sites in Solo and its surrounding areas, allowing local embodied knowledge to inform his ongoing artistic inquiry.
Trained within theatre and dance communities, Chen Chun Han’s practice is grounded in an attentiveness to dialogue—how it emerges, shifts, and sometimes fails. He is deeply concerned with the conditions that enable or inhibit people’s willingness to engage with one another. His recent works often address questions of cultural identity and belonging, examining how individuals position themselves within social and political narratives.
Chen Chun Han is particularly drawn to the relationship between discourse, lived experience, and emotional resonance. He often refers to George Orwell’s choice of the sentence “He loves Big Brother” as the final line of 1984—a statement of love concluding a dystopian novel—as a reminder of how language, power, and emotion can intertwine in unsettling ways.
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Workshop Series
It Needs Two to Solo
by Chen Chun Han
Duration: 3 hours
Sabtu, 19 Juli 2025
14:30 – 18:00 WIB
Di Studio Plesungan
Berdasarkan pengalamannya bekerja dengan berbagai komunitas penonton, Chen Chun Han menyadari bahwa metode dan bahasa artistiknya selalu berubah untuk merespons konteks yang berbeda. Dalam sesi berbagi ini, ia menelusuri kembali latar belakang dan proses dari sejumlah karya sebelumnya, untuk memperlihatkan dinamika-dinamika tersembunyi yang membentuk sebuah karya performans.
Lokakarya ini juga memperkenalkan praktik-praktik fisik yang berasal dari pelatihan performans. Mengutip pernyataan Steve Paxton, “Solo dancing does not exist: the dancer dances with the floor,” dari tulisan Drafting Interior Techniques, Chen Chun Han mengajak peserta untuk meninjau ulang gagasan tentang kehadiran solo. Melalui latihan tubuh, peserta diajak mengeksplorasi kehadiran di panggung, cara memberi perhatian, relasi antar-performer, serta keberadaan “mitra tak kasatmata” yang turut menentukan hasil performans.
Pendekatan ini mencerminkan cara Chen Chun Han bekerja dengan performer: memandang performans bukan sebagai tindakan individual yang terisolasi, melainkan sebagai proses relasional yang terus-menerus dinegosiasikan antara tubuh, ruang, dan perhatian bersama.
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It Needs Two to Solo
by Chen Chun Han
Drawing from his experience of working with diverse audience communities, Chen Chun Han continually adapts his artistic language and methods in response to different contexts. In this workshop-sharing, he revisits the backgrounds and processes of selected previous works in order to reveal the often invisible dynamics that underlie performance-making.
The session also introduces physical practices drawn from performance training. Referencing Steve Paxton’s statement, “Solo dancing does not exist: the dancer dances with the floor,” from Drafting Interior Techniques, Chen Chun Han invites participants to reconsider the idea of solo presence. Through embodied exercises, the workshop explores stage presence, attention, and relationality—between performers, space, and the “invisible partners” that shape performance outcomes.
These practices reflect Chen Chun Han’s broader approach to working with performers: treating performance not as an isolated act, but as a continuous negotiation between bodies, environments, and shared attention.