Xavier Cha

Through blurred glimpses, a performer is seen moving alone through a dance studio. Limbs appear and disappear in the video frame, and for a moment, a body is reflected on a mirrored wall. There is the sound of breathing, and fragments of a soundtrack can be heard when the performer nears each corner of the room.

The mediated relationship between spectator and performer is complicated and rethought in Xavier Cha’s most recent work, Untitled (Caretaker), a live-stream video performance shot remotely through a Go-Pro harnessed to a dancer’s chest. Originally conceived in 2020 during the height of pandemic isolation, the work questions how we witness bodies struggling through times of crisis and collapse. Agency of the performing body is restored and emphasized in two ways: improvised movement (instead of mapping movement onto the body through choreography); and limiting any peripheral access a viewer might have to seeing the “full picture,” so to speak. But where distance is normally felt through a video interface, Cha insists on proximity and intimacy between viewer and performer by way of inhabiting a disorienting first-person perspective.

Untitled (Caretaker) is broadcast in real time at 47 Canal at select hours on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays through the length of the exhibition, and simultaneously at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. This work is made in collaboration with performer Ley Gambucci, with sound design by Ashland Mines.

Performance schedule for October 19 through November 11, 2023: Thursdays at 5pm Fridays at 4pm, 5pm Saturdays at 2pm, 3pm, 4pm