Part ritual, part performance art, part colonial history inscribed on the body, blood run investigates my Han Chinese colonizer and Taiwanese plains indigenous heritage within the context of larger political histories. Combining experimental video, dance, and poetic text, the work asks: “What is the difference between an immigrant and a colonizer?” “How do the colonizer and colonized live inside the same body?” “When does survival require disappearance?”  blood run asks what hidden histories are contained in the body, while poignantly acknowledging the impossibility of fully reclaiming what has been lost.

photo: Scott Trafton

photo: Diana Chen

photo: Diana Chen

photo: Diana Chen

photo: Diana Chen

photo: Diana Chen

photo: Diana Chen

blood run was developed in part through the Post Natyam Collective’s web-based creative processes, Queering Abhinaya and Reimagining Citizenship.