Life Ring

Life Ring (《洄》) is a contemporary dance film rooted in the movement aesthetics of classical Chinese dance and has the potential for live performance in experimental theatre. Experimenting with restrictive props and physical dialogues in duets, the work deconstructs the phenomenon of intergenerational symbiotic strangulation faced by women in Chinese families—that is, power struggles in the name of “love”. By breaking down the imagery of the “white swan float”—a ring-shaped device of gentle confinement commonly used for life support, the piece attempts to expose how contemporary patriarchy disciplines women in tender yet constraining ways, creating relationships of mutual dependence and mutual harm. The female subject undergoes self-tearing and completes reconstruction in the face of this entanglement, embodying both the protective confinement of a patriarchal society and women’s traumatic growth from self-rupture.