Everyone should create in their own way.
— Shiuan Chang
People Concerto is a performance work that integrates composed theater with a real-time, large-scale interactive sound installation, completed through the collective presence, movement, and performance of its audience.
People Concerto, Opus 1 takes a direct approach to content and form by translating the complex fabric of cause and consequence into a socially engaged, interactive, and real-time sonic composition. Inspired by forest ecosystems, where diverse acoustic elements such as birdsong, wind, water, and insects form an evolving, self-organized soundscape, the work explores how human movement, technology, and AI-driven sound design generate emergent musical structures. The installation dissolves the boundary between stage and audience, positioning visitors simultaneously as authors, performers, observers, and collaborators.
The piece transforms architectural space into an instrument. Yuanyuan Ma’s sixty-three fabric cells cover the floor, infrared cameras monitor the space from above, and an AI system developed in collaboration with Quanta Research Institute translates the collective behavior of the audience into sound in real time.
Within the cells lie recorded vocal layers from Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and instrumental passages from Ictus Ensemble. The resulting acoustic experience is determined entirely by how the space is navigated: the sequence in which cells are entered, the proximity between a body and the dancer, the stillness or motion of each person, and an underlying structural arrangement composed by Shiuan Chang. The governing logic remains fixed while the acoustic result never repeats; each session exists once, shaped strictly by the individuals in the room. Dancer I-Lin Liu moves among them, articulating and shifting the physical space, while live performances by Ictus Ensemble and Sheng soloist Li-Chin Li weave through the field of AI-generated sound.
No one is told they are performing. Yet as people sense that their own movement generates sound, they seek the authority behind it, looking to be placed, looking to be arranged. The work relinquishes authorship, and in doing so reveals the instinct to search for a center. What is horizontal underfoot becomes vertical in perception: a space structured at the scale of an individual body, where the sounds we hesitate to claim prove to have been ours all along.
POJECT VISION
To create an ever-evolving multidisciplinary work and interconnected infrastructures where people become the generators of sound: not just as performers, but as agents of perception, shaping sonic worlds through their presence, movement, and collective intention.
Concept | Shiuan & Yuan
Artistic Director | Shiuan Chang
Music Composition & Sound Design | Shiuan Chang
Installation | Yuanyuan Ma
Dramaturgy | Wo-Yao Hung
Audio & Sound Engineering | Shao-Ting Sun
Recording Engineering | Shao-Ting Sun
Lighting Design | Ray Zheng
International New Music Ensemble Collaborative Recording | Ictus Ensemble
International Collaborative Recording | Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart
Performing Musicians | Ictus Ensemble
Choreographer | Liu I-Ling
Production Manager | Eason Cheng
Production Manager | Ying-Lu Wang
Stage Manager | Nick YuChen Hung
Co-Production | WeiWuYing Performing Center of the Arts
Work-In-Progress Supporting Venue | National Taichung Theater
Co-developer: Quanta Research Institute
Technical Support: Quanta Research Institute
Touring planning | udnfunlife
International Development / Producer | Jiaying Chen
Composition Commission Sponsorship | MUZIK 3 Foundation
Sound & Audio Engineering Sponsorship | Jessica Chu & Hendrick Lee
Consultant | Huey-Mei Lee, Yong-Feng Chung Divooe Zein
More Information
Premiere
Date: April 10–12, 2026 at Weiwuying International Music Festival
Venue: National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying)
Performers & Creative Team
Live Performance: Ictus Ensemble & Li-Chin Li
Pre-recorded Music: Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Ictus Ensemble
Choreography & Dance: I-Lin Liu