WONDER WOMAN 

WONDER WOMAN is an exploration through two interconnected Asian femme imaginings, navigating the slippages between traditional and cultural dances, and contemporary dance storytelling.

The first woman is the matriarch, a figure whose identity and authority are deeply cemented in tradition, ceremony, and the rigid, often gendered, belief systems that ritualize her position. Her existence is defined by the inherited structures of her cultural past.

The matriarch’s counterpoint, or "shadow self," is the younger woman who embodies a yearning for a break from this tradition. She is driven by her immediate emotional wants and needs, seeking liberation outside the prescribed roles. This younger figure represents the desire for self-definition against the backdrop of cultural expectation.

Driven by these potent dualities, WONDER WOMAN embodies the ruptures in expectations placed upon women within East and South-East Asian societies. It showcases the sharp dichotomies often experienced between different generational diasporas—the immigrant or traditionally rooted generation versus their modern, often Westernized, descendants.

WONDER WOMAN is a project collaboratively choreographed by 𝗞𝗶𝗸𝗶 𝗥𝗮𝗵𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗸𝗮 and Reina Takeuchi.

𝗞𝗶𝗸𝗶 𝗥𝗮𝗵𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗸𝗮 (𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗮) is a choreographer, dancer and researcher. Born in Lampung, Indonesia, she completed her Masters in Choreography at the Indonesian Institute of Art Yogyakarta in 2016. Her work is concerned with the relationship between organic movement and science.

Kiki has been making choreography since 2016, and also performed in Asia Tri, Jogja International Street Performance, ArtJog, and Kaba Festival, MIAO Dance Singapore, Thailand among others. She has also been active in sharing workshops of her method “Body Deconstruction and Spontaneity” since 2018 in places such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Bali, Yogyakarta and Lampung. Kiki is the founder of Hujan Hijau Dance-Lab and been the Artistic Director since 2017, a body laboratory for dance research.

Reina Brigette Takeuchi is a Japanese Australian dance artist interested in cross-cultural exchange, collaboration and creative facilitation. Her work has taken her both nationally and internationally, and has worked in Austria, Germany, Japan, and Indonesia. Her performance projects have included installations at Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, and SomoS Arts, Berlin, and performances for Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art, Performance Space, the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Late program, Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Pier 2/3, Sydney Dance Company and ROHM Theatre Kyoto.