Retina Maneuver

Retina Maneuver is a solo lecture-performance that theatre 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 during the show. On stage, he meticulously searches through his cloud storage, email history, social media accounts, playlists, and even explores Time Machine backups, all in a determined effort to find those forgotten memories.
Ultimately, Wang stumbles upon a photo accidentally uploaded to his Facebook page and, with the help of Tropicamide, a pupil-dilating medication administered three times during the performance, he is transported back to the day of the single's release. There, he finds himself in a military setting, passionately engaged in bayonet drills and shouting the command "kill."
As his eyesight continues to deteriorate and the song “Girl On Fire” transforms into a marching tune for soldiers heading into battle, he reflects on whether these fragile memories portrayed on stage will be annihilated by the fire of war.

A production by Ping-Hsiang Wang coproduced by TATWERK | Performative Forschung
Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media; the residency program at PACT Zollverein (Essen), funded by the Ministry for Culture and Science of the State North Rhine-Westphalia; Mestizo Arts Platform/WIPCOOP; 2022 Thinkers’ Partner Project (TP Project,) Thinkers’ Studio