Music and Video by Darryl Padilla About: Oijundai Liu’s Masks is a stunner from start to finish. The lights come up on a lurching mound of opaque fabric, limbs and masked heads press against this membrane The cast is in semi-glittery nylon tops and black togs. The masks on the backs of their heads creates a spellbinding effect of movement. The illusion of inverse body movement is created. It is a classic technique in ancient Chinese Opera to skewer the viewer’s hard-wired perception of how the body works. The film and music elements work very well in Masks, from the original acoustic/electronica soundtrack by Darryl Justin Padilla to the b&w film projected of two masked dancers, masks in place as they dance backward on a barren mudflat with mountains in the distance. It is no surprise that after seeing this work that Liu has won a full scholarship at the American Dance Festival. Copyright - The Dance Journal: Our Bare Truths at the Conwell Theater https://philadelphiadance.org/dancejournal/2019/02/18/our-bare-truths-at-the-conwell-theater/