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Artist Profile
Ho Hsiao-Mei
In 2010, Ho Hsiao-Mei founded MeimageDance, and has since been acclaimed as “a master of creating surreal imagination”. Her works are known for their diversity, physical exploration, and richly vibrant aesthetic—a fusion of Taiwan’s contemporary vitality and feminine intensity. Through her choreography, Ho probes the body as a vessel of emotion, revealing the most delicate strata of the human spirit. Her signature works—New Paradise of Silent Island, Renaissance of its Ashes, and The Lost Limbo—merge ritual, technology, and local culture. Ho received Taiwan’s National Arts Award in 2016, and founded the Dance Now Asia Festival （DNA）in 2023, dedicated to fostering creative exchange and cultural dialogue among Asian choreographers and dancers.
Her early work Three was praised by The New York Times for “its distinct style that lets the body speak as language.” Her latest VR & dance work The Lost Limbo featured at Kunstfest Weimar, was praised by Rolf C. Hemke, its Artistic Director, “A Taiwanese dance work that reaches astonishing heights in its integration of theme, technology, and artistic expression…”
Artwork
Monologue of Barbie
“Monologue of Barbie” features a dancer wearing only a nude-colored bodysuit, embodying the image of the perfect female figure represented by Barbie. Through her interaction with a single light, the performance explores different perspectives of viewing, blending extreme objectivity with intense intimacy. It highlights the issues of women being watched and objectified. In the final segment, the woman transitions from being passively observed to actively leading the audience in viewing her most private parts—an attempt to reclaim power.
In the VR version of "Monologue of Barbie", not only have the dancer’s movements been rearranged and redesigned to suit the VR viewing experience, but the footage captured from the camera inside the light has also been planned for a different interactive engagement.
Viewers can choose whether to turn on the lights in the room, as if entering Barbie’s room. Through different light sources, they can enjoy the relationship between projected images and the dancer’s movements, adding another layer of viewing pleasure.
Running Time: 15 Min
〷◠‿◠〷 This project is part of our festival track "MUNICH Beyond" supported by Film Fernseh Fonds Bayern (FFF).
