Run (2012)
— Performance art, with Claire Chase
commissioned by the Guangzhou 2012 International Art Triennial
Guangzhou Opera House, Sep 28th, 2012 travels to the Guangdong Art Museum Sep 28th through Dec 2012

Run is a simple shape perceived from two sides. On stage, two performers, the artist Du Yun and Claire Chase, embark on an elongated process that follows parallel trajectories: one, from an intimate space spilling into high voltage intensities; the other, its exact opposite – the mirror image, going backwards; high intensity dissolves into a stillness. At the core of rapidly increasing movement lies this stillness. The duelling dynamic of the two on-stage performers changes throughout the piece continuing to transform during and after, mutating along each trajectory. They present instantaneous disorientations and sudden abyssal faults that exist in ubiquitous routine.
Deconstructing the idea of a definitive performance, Du Yun invites the audience to undergo a visceral experience from which no one interpretation might be the ultimate result – while also offering the audience a more authoritative role. If the audience is the transmitter of the work, the performers act as the transducer and the composer provides the sound source, then who owns the authorship of the work? It offers an analytical listening in relation to the experience of the performance, in which it is as if one has been led into an enclosed space in total silence and stillness, and starts to run, as fast as possible.
Du Yun and Claire Chase performing Run at the Fourth Guangzhou Triennial
In the Press
Daily Serving: The Theme Exhibition of the 4th Guangzhou Triennial