OCEAN CAGE

In their new collaboration, visual artist and director Tianzhuo Chen and dancer and choreographer Siko Setyanto reflect on life in Lamalera, a remote fishing village on the island of Lembata in Indonesia, where traditional fishing and whaling still plays a central role. 

Rooted in the intricate yet affective narration in Lamalera, Ocean Cage encompasses the entanglement among the whale, the fisherman and the ancestor. In the interspecies encounter with the sperm whale, the interrelationships of a complex ecosystem and the basis of solidary economic coexistence manifest themselves as well as a spiritual source and connection with the ancestors, interwoven like the links of a chain where a beginning and an end can no longer be determined. Audiences are invited to immerse themselves into the tender, still, afflicted ideological rift, to breathe and dissolve into the porous and leaking bodies of water, mammals, fisherfolk, ballads, breezes and spirits, reconsidering the interdependent relationships across species and how we can (re)understand the more-than-human justice.

In the ethereal setting created by Chen, Ocean Cage combines elements of installation, film and dance to create the space for the performance, in which Setyanto becomes the central protagonist in changing characters. Together with the Indonesian musicians Kadapat and Nova Ruth, a visual, dance and musical maelstrom is created in which tradition and ecology, spiritually and technology, beliefs in progress and interspecies symbiosis are whirled together. 

Get your tickets for Ocean Cage at the Asia-Europe Cultural Festival 2025  here (EN) or by scanning the QR code below with your WeChat app (CN):