k*hole karaoke | Ping-Hsiang Wang: Retina Maneuver
About program
Why is a Taiwanese military reservist so fascinated by Alicia Keys’ chart-topping hit Girl on Fire – a gay anthem he has sung countless times in karaoke bars? As he launches into the song’s climax, he is struck by a disorienting realization: He can no longer place himself in the timeline of his own life when this transformative song was released on September 4, 2012.
A fanatical search through his digital archives unearths fragments of memory and confronts him with a past haunted by violence and destruction. In a live performance that assembles a visual monument entirely from memory, Wang wrestles with the fragility of memory – and the unsettling reality that everything he has preserved could go up in flames in an instant, consumed by forces beyond his control.
Duration
55 minutes
Language
English
Warning for audience
Loud music is played during the performance. The performance deals with the trauma of war – it contains trigger moments relating to this theme. We recommend this performance for audiences aged 16 and over.
Vstupenky
Photogallery
Creative team
k*hole karaoke
Founded by Taiwanese director Ping-Hsiang Wang and American writer Travis Jeppesen, k*hole karaoke is a performance company exploring how human behavior is reshaped by systems—material, digital, environmental, and commercial. Their work interrogates the ways in which our perceptions, desires, and actions are conditioned by the mechanics of late capitalism and mediated experience.
Their signature aesthetic transforms the everyday into the uncanny—transposing familiar landscapes into hyperreal, often surreal digital environments. Theater, for them, is not just a stage but a perceptual technology—an apparatus for decoding reality and proposing new modes of communication.
Fusing language, movement, sound, livestreams, objects, and scenography, K-hole Karaoke constructs performances where narrative becomes a fully immersive, sensory architecture. Each work invites audiences to step into a world where meaning is layered, unstable, and constantly remade.
| Artistic Creation and Performance | k*hole karaoke, Ping-Hsiang Wang |
|---|---|
| Dramaturgy | Wan Shi |
| Lighting Design | Raquel Rosildete |
| Lighting Assistant | Sára Enyingi |
| Artistic Producer | Aurora Kellermann |
| Graphic Design | Meng-Jiin Hsieh |
| Stage Support and Consultation | Soojin Oh |
| Lighting Support and Consultation | Yi-Ju Chou |
| Development Stage Assistant Director | Kang-Hua Chang |
| Studio ALTA touring and residency support | HAU Hebbel am Ufer |
| With support from | Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg (KVS), Brussels| Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media |National Culture and Arts Foundation Taiwan | rthe residency program at PACT Zollverein (Essen), funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia | Mestizo Arts Platform / WIPCOOP | English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center | 2022 Thinkers’ Partner Project (TP Project), Thinkers’ Studio |
Retina Maneuver is co-produced by TATWERK | Performative Forschung, Freies Werkstatt Theater, Kaaitheater, and the 2026 Human Rights Festival.
Děkujeme!
