Chroma 11 – A dance transcending life and death, traversing the virtual and the real

A conversation with director Tsang Tsui-shan and choreographer Ix Wong Thien-pau

Chroma 11 is a “visual journey about time, space, love and memory.” The project began with director Tsang Tsui-shan’s dance film Ward 11 (2019), a work that documents the 20-year relationship between choreographers Ix Wong Thien-pau and Aaron Khek Ah-hock, which ended when Hock succumbed to disease. Two years in the making, Chroma 11 continues the couple’s intertwining dance that transcends life and death through Virtual Reality (VR).

As a narrative medium, the biggest difference between VR and traditional film and video is that it is spatially “frameless”. For Tsang, who normally uses moving images for storytelling, and Ix, who utilises choreography, working with VR is a relatively new experience. Over the past 20 years, Tsang has been working with conventional “framed” media, using camera shots to tell stories and capture time, characters, and changes in light and shadow. She believes that the frameless nature of VR and the poetry of dance movements are aligned with one another. “VR is a very lyrical form that allows the viewer to enter a particular world, like a small theatre, and a special intimacy is established between the viewer and the characters within. I am very fascinated by it.”

As the choreographer, Ix also needed to consider the transfer of the medium from a physical stage into a formless VR, which opened up a lot of room for imagination. “When choreographing a VR performance, you need to come up with various simulated settings and create many elements that are invisible to the naked eye.” In addition to the dance movements, the visuals and narration of Ward 11, Ix used his phone to record his situation and psychological state to access his own authentic emotions in its rawest state. “When I lost my loved one, many people reminded me to let go. Later, one of my friends reminded me that I don’t need to let go, but to make room in my heart to feel the loss. The main idea of this work is an attempt to transcend life and death in order to continue to love someone. We provide room for the viewer to make use of Chroma 11 as a form of therapy session.”

As a creative medium and vessel, VR exhibits a unique ambiguity: that is, the “in-betweenness” referenced in the Chinese title of the work. Tsang sees this ambiguity as the boundary between touchable and untouchable, the sensory experience between the virtual and the real. In the conventional film viewing experience, whether it is in a movie theatre with images projected on a silver screen, or enjoyed on a mobile phone, the audience’s way of seeing and viewing angle is controlled and limited by camera shots and editing technologies. VR, on the other hand, is an immersive narrative medium. After putting on the viewing device, viewers break away from the usual visual logic of watching movies. The creative team guides viewers into the VR world using sounds and images. The protagonists of this work are Ix and Hock, and should viewers get to know the two from the perspective of a bystander, or put themselves in the middle of their dance? This change in standpoints brings a fresh angle to Tsang’s visual creation process.

Life and death are important themes in Chroma 11. Tsang and her creative team chose to use VR technology to present a humanistic concern. The “reality” of the dance scene in which the two meet again and express their love for one another is key to the work. Instead of using 3D scanning technology, which provides a high degree of “simulation” but relatively rigid body movements, Tsang decided to go with 2.5D Depthkit dynamic stereoscopic imaging in shooting this work to record a more holistic likeness. “To me, capturing their intimate conditions and movements in order to convey the underlying emotions is more important.”

Prior to commencing production, the creative team made a VR segment especially for Ix so that he could be reunited with his love by donning the device. “We chose some clips from their past, as well as the voice narration that Hock recorded for Ward 11 before. Memories are transmitted through to the senses via the headset, and only Ix can personally feel it.” Ix also acknowledged that the VR segment released suppressed emotions in him. “VR is like a modern psychic medium, which had kept Hock’s soul safe and sound, and brought it back to interact with us.”

Tsang believes that Chroma 11 transmits the love between the two protagonists to viewers in audio-visual form using VR technology. It is a dialogue among people, art and technology. The work is light and tender, with no earth-shattering images, “I hope the audience can simply feel their love for one another, which is a connection between people and the world.” As Ix said, “There are millions of forms of love. The world would be a better place if this love can be carried forward to others.”