Asia TOPA Virtual LABs reimagined

Asia TOPA, the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts, has released its final Virtual LAB video series fostering cultural exchange, creation and connection during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The digital outcomes published online on the Asia TOPA website were born from a desire to keep artists across the globe connected during a period of lockdown and isolation, continuing the work of the Asia TOPA LABs. Artists from a dozen countries and regions were invited to reach out to one another online, to begin exploring creative ideas or testing concepts with the potential to evolve into intercultural collaborations.

TOPA (Outgoing) Creative Director Stephen Armstrong:

The individual projects being developed through the Asia TOPA Virtual LABs in 2021-2022 are unique in their approach to live performance making using digital connectivity.  The nature of these cultural exchange and collaboration projects was very much impacted by the slowing down of time and the paradoxical intimacy of Zoom while being forcibly separated through geography.

These short, online creative outcomes are insights into each artists’ process and contribute to a collective narrative about the global experience of continuing to imagine and create in the face of COVID since 2020.

The creative development outcomes and process videos in this final Virtual LAB series includes The Interpreters, a collaboration between professional translators and interpreters working in English, French and Japanese, Bedhaya Roro, featuring the development of a Javanese ritual dance, and excerpts from Lu Yang’s latest motion capture presentation DOKU: Live Alone Die Alone – The Karma Circle. Other featured projects in development include Betty Error Trip, The Voyage of Bayini, and The Nanjing Project.

The Asia TOPA Virtual LABS are also supported by Playking Foundation and the Australian Government through the Office for the Arts.

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