Shortwave is a series of new digital commissions, designed to platform a diverse cross-section of emerging or early career interdisciplinary Australian artists working at the forefront of digital performance.

A Burning House, 2021
Eugene Choi

Follow the pigeons into the nooks and crannies of the city, into the homes they inhabit even if they are on fire; follow the woman from China and the man from South Korea, and remember how they met in Japan; remember how they use to joke and dream in a shared language that is not their own, about their daughter who will grow up to become a butoh dancer or a performer in a K-pop band. Jokes and dreams have a way of coming true, though not in their original form. For what is known as ‘butoh’ originated as ankoku buyo, the ‘dance of utter darkness’. In this dance the body disintegrates, fragments, becomes what is referred to in Japanese as ma: the space between, open to the elements. At the very bottom of this space, in the body, is a burning house.

Performances by Shun Fang Liu, Dae Yong Choi, Suu-Mei Chew and Martyn Reyes;

Cinematography by Tyron Seeto
Music, Grading and Additional Filming by Jeremy Elphick