MONICA TOLIA
  • ABOUT
    • Bio & Contact
    • CV
    • NEWS
  • PERFORMANCE
    • Kyoko Returns
    • a snake in the house means the family will never want >
      • The Place (June 2022)
      • Deptford X Festival (July 2021)
    • Flora / Fauna / Machina >
      • Chalton Gallery for Art Night (June 2019)
      • Gossamer Fog (January 2019)
    • Technologies of Lived Abstraction: FUTURE PRESENT >
      • FUTURE PRESENT 2
      • FUTURE PRESENT 1
    • BioSonics
  • VISUAL
  • MEDIA
    • SOUNDS
    • VIDEO: Low Murmur
    • VIDEO + COLLABORATION: 2m
  • COLLECTIVE
    • NIAN is here! 年到了
    • Lunar New Year Festival 2022
    • Deptford X Festival 2021: Have you eaten yet?
    • ABOUT 你吃了吗

a snake in the house means the family will never want

​2022
​
Performance, 27 min
​

A multi-sensory performance blending visual art/sculptural costuming, dance & live electronica, the title of the work is based on an old Chinese proverb, and the departure point for articulating lived experiences & intimacies as Asian diaspora with cultural misunderstandings, intergenerational healing & transformation.

Opening with an audio voicenote of the artist’s mother reflecting on overwork, xenophobia & cultural invisibility through the semiotics of the snake & ingrained tendency of Hek Fu 吃苦 (transl.: eating bitterness), the song of the declining dialect of Toisanese forms the background to which the duo onstage perform a choreography suspended in repetitive mechanisms between work and ritual.  Movement eventually departs into sensuous animalism, exploring what liberatory potential is there when we learn from & embody more than what is human.  Wearing sculptural costuming illuminated by light, and shifting form with the dancer’s movements, the performance projects transformational imaginings of cultural & futuristic hybridity.

This iteration has been developed in collaboration with choreographer & performer 
​
Ting-ning Wen.

CREDITS

Choreography & performance: Monica Tolia & Ting-ning Wen
Sound composition: Monica Tolia
Voiceover: Fong Shao Ying
Writing: Monica Tolia & Shao Ying Fong
Toisan Transl.: Shao Ying Fong & Vince Ng
Dramaturgical support: Phoenix Tanner


​
Exhibitions/events:
Premier 10 June 2022: Resolution Festival, The Place (London)
PRESS RELEASE
TRAILER
INTERVIEW - CHINESE ARTS NOW (CAN)
INTERVIEW - DANCE ART JOURNAL
Picture
VIDEO STILLS FROM PERFORMANCE

Monica Tolia ยท a snake in the house means the family will never want (LIVE)
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​​©  2022  Monica Tolia

  • ABOUT
    • Bio & Contact
    • CV
    • NEWS
  • PERFORMANCE
    • Kyoko Returns
    • a snake in the house means the family will never want >
      • The Place (June 2022)
      • Deptford X Festival (July 2021)
    • Flora / Fauna / Machina >
      • Chalton Gallery for Art Night (June 2019)
      • Gossamer Fog (January 2019)
    • Technologies of Lived Abstraction: FUTURE PRESENT >
      • FUTURE PRESENT 2
      • FUTURE PRESENT 1
    • BioSonics
  • VISUAL
  • MEDIA
    • SOUNDS
    • VIDEO: Low Murmur
    • VIDEO + COLLABORATION: 2m
  • COLLECTIVE
    • NIAN is here! 年到了
    • Lunar New Year Festival 2022
    • Deptford X Festival 2021: Have you eaten yet?
    • ABOUT 你吃了吗