Last week, Jiaying Gao’s ‘Choreo Archive’ premiered at London’s SKEWED gallery, featuring a multi-format showcase of live art, sculpture, photography, and artefacts inspired by the process of dance.

In Choreo Archive, Jiaying challenges the very idea of what an archive is built around and what it means to accomplish: the preservation, protection and control of past thoughts, stories, identities and bodies. Through a series of workshops prior to the exhibition, participants learned to reactivate their dance histories, retell their stories, and perform them with Jiaying’s direction and facilitation.

The art of dance is integral to this interactive performance. Jiaying’s work uses movement to explore and preserve traces of intersubjective and embodied knowledge.

Jiaying Gao is one of the Spring Creators supported by TONG. TONG continues to champion creativity and storytelling among emerging talent within Chinese diaspora. Jiaying reflects on her experience working with Tong on Choreo Archive:

“It’s so great to have this opportunity to work with Tong, thank you so much for your presence, support and positive energy. You all made Choreo Archive very special. I really appreciate Tong’s contribution to Choreo Archive – all the fruitful thoughts and emotions that were exchanged. They mean a lot to me and will definitely be carried forward with the project in the future.” – Jiaying Gao