“She′s living in a world and it’s on fire
Filled with catastrophe, but she knows she can fly away”
Retina Maneuver is a solo lecture-performance that theater maker Ping-Hsiang Wang is currently developing. The performance originates from his unexplainable obsession with Alicia Keys’s pop song “Girl On Fire.” Frustration over not remembering where he was when the song was released in 2012 drives him to delve into his digital archives. Ultimately, Wang stumbles upon a photo accidentally uploaded to his Facebook page and finds himself in a military setting, passionately engaged in bayonet drills and shouting the command “kill.”
When “Girl on Fire” is no longer just a chart-topper but a marching tune for soldiers going into battle, he wonders, will these fragile memories be annihilated by the fire of war?
In English