Yin-Chi Lee 李映頎

Yin-Chi Lee is a dance and wushu artist, choreographer and University of Auckland Dance Studies graduate teaching assistant. Born in Taiwan, she moved to Tāmaki Makaurau from Taipei at the age of 13. Engaging in movement, videography, AV design and writing, Lee blends various artistic disciplines into her practice. Her doctoral research in Dance Studies centres on exploring the voices of Taiwanese migrant identity, and displacement.

This Room is an Island, at Te Pou Theatre in 2024, was an 90-minute interactive movement performance weaving together stories of two displaced generations from one family. Spanning from the 1930s to 2023, the work reflects the history of Taiwan from the period under Japanese colonisation to the ongoing tension with Chinese nationalism.

The performance space was transformed into a portal, meticulously “engineered and reconstructed for the memories to dwell”. The soil of an island lingers, where memories may “belong and not belong to the same world(s)” and identities shift under various regimes. Audiences are guided through and integrated with rapid changes in virtual architectures and remixes of past audio and songs. Remembered through the mouths and bodies of mothers and daughters, the show speaks about home, war, mistakes of the past and longing for a better life, delving into what is carried and what has left. Lee describes the show as a place “where I thought I was dancing to the past left by the people that came before, yet without understanding those were aspects of curated national memories.”

This Room is an Island employed a significant play of contrast between light and shadow, harnessing the power of light to “choose what will be seen, what will be forgotten”. Illuminated through projections designed by Darryl Chin and Kyung Ho Min, the performance multiplied “a space within a space”, creating digital architecture and applying technologies to manipulate graphics live, echoing the dancers’ movement.

Lee is also an accomplished athlete representing New Zealand on the national wushu team, winning several championships, and is an international wushu judge.

Yin-Chi Lee's website

This Room Is An Island Instagram

REVIEW: This Room Is An Island by Jennifer Cheuk

'Unequivocal determined vision' — Review by Iatua Richard Felagai Taito

'Part immersive performance, part remembrance, 'This Room is an Island' invites us to witness and to become vulnerable.' — Review by Renee Liang

2022 — University of Auckland, Velocity Innovation Challenge: Social Prize

2021 — International Wushu Federation, World Wushu Championship World Virtual Competition: Silver Medalist

2020 — University of Auckland, full PhD scholarship in Dance Studies

2020 — New Zealand National Wushu Championship: Gold medal

2019 — China World Kung Fu Championships: New Zealand national athlete

2019 — New Zealand National Wushu Championship: Gold medal