Fangas Nayaw

The four-channel video installation of Taiwanese artist Fangas Nayaw is a speculative exploration on a future when all traces of indigenous population have disappeared. In this parallel universe, all peoples may take up the role of the indigenous and fabricate a music and dance culture of their tribes. The women and men in the video whose appearance reveal nothing about their tribal identity do not wear those traditional costumes but put them on display like props. In this ritual of the future Amis people – today’s biggest indigenous people in Taiwan – songs and languages have gone lost. All that is left is the mechanic beats that accompany the movement of these bodies.

Fangas Nayaw works across different fields, including media, theatre, and dance, with an emphasis on the indigenous heritage in the contemporary world of globalisation. La XXX Punk adopts a counterfactual model to reconstruct four different aspects of the Amis culture respectively in each channel: song and dance rituals, everyday living, ancestral portraits, and kinship remembrances. Referencing the Amis age set organisation, a system to distribute labour and responsibility among men, this installation dissects the stereotypical imaginings of the Amis people and creates its tune of a futuristic indigenous punk.

La XXX Punk will be shown at Freiheitshalle before the performances of Go Paiwan by the indigenous Taiwanese company Tjimur Dance Theatre. In addition to the video installation, Fangas Nayaw will give an introduction to his work.

DANCE 2023 is concentrating a focus on dance from Taiwan and presenting, along with La XXX Punk and Go Paiwan the solo performance FreeSteps – NiNi by HORSE in public space.