As the audience files in, a montage of Orientalist clichés – animated clips from historical and Hollywood exotica (Anna May Wong; Charlie Chan; Lawrence of Arabia), generic “Eastern” art and familiar memes – play in loops inside a projected circle above a masked dancer dressed in funereal black.

Think Edward Said’s foundational argument writ in pixels: Orientalism as a Western discourse of assumptions and stereotypes creating a distorted image of a generic “East”, one that begins somewhere in Arabia and ends where Polynesia starts (and a new set of generalisations take over).

Post-Oriental Express. Photo © Wendell Teodoro

Korean artist Eun-Me Ahn’s largely exuberant work of dance theatre tackles those distortions head-on in a joyous parade of costume and choreography performed by an ensemble of eight dancers (including Ahn herself), developed from field research in Manila, Bali and Okinawa.

Playfully resisting the idea of “Asian” as a single, consumable aesthetic, the work thrives on friction and dissonance: between regions, traditions and generations. Cultural symbols are treated as sacred artefacts and mutable resources. Tea pots, paper umbrellas, ceremonial dress and pop-cultural references (Super Sentai-style kung-fu action; a giant inflatable panda) are paraded. Identities...