The Perfect Moment
Year
2015 (Date created)Medium
Video ArtDescription
The two-channel video depicts an old veteran dancer talking about her experiences. Her story has three parts: First, she talks about her experience as an only-audience of a famous modern dancer's solo piece. Second, she describes her first debut performance. She tries to describe the movements orally in detail while a young dancer simultaneously re-enacts the story in a bright empty studio. At last, the old veteran dancer recalls the perfect moment that she has experienced in her first solo performance. And again, she tries to describe the moment as detailed as possible while the young dancer still re-enact the moment and the movements that she describes.
The story and the dance however do not perfectly match throughout the piece. There are discrepancies: first, between the older dancer's story and the actual dance she performed long ago; secondly, between the younger dancer's rendition on the perfect moment and the older dancer's recollection of the moment and so on. While younger dancer does not replicate the original moment precisely, it still becomes her own perfect moment.
Memory cannot be perfectly re-presented or re-enacted. The story of a person cannot be perfectly re-presented, nobody can re-enact the moment that a person experienced either. It is impossible; however, the perfect moment exists. It is impossible to re-create, re-enact, re-present but such a moment exists with everyone's experience.