It is human nature to long for something more or different than what one has. At times, this aspirational dreaming can lead to advancements: someone finds a better career, leaves an abusive relationship, or, as is the case for Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, returns home. But more often than not, this attitude leads to a sense of discontent with one’s own lot, an unquenchable desire for something new. "Over the Rainbow" explores this precarious balance between desire and satisfaction, encouraging an honest reflection on our own personal sense of identity and values. What are we searching for? Where do we call home? Are we happy? This VR experience takes the audience on a surreal journey from a theatre audition to a dark, David Lynch-inspired dreamscape to a Broadway-style musical. But "Over the Rainbow" offers more than a physical voyage; it is a trip within, an entering into of our aspirations, insecurities, and joys.

In 1984, 268 coal miners died in three separate accidents in northern Taiwan. The names of the men who died have long been forgotten, just as the details of their excruciating deaths and grueling working conditions have also faded from memory. These tragedies were not unexpected aberrations; they were understood dangers associated with work that has claimed hundreds of thousands of miners over the past century and continue to claim thousands of lives around the world each year. Focusing on mining disasters in Taiwan and the United States, The Forgotten is a requiem for this class of invisible laborers, a bringing to light of the stories of these fallen men, women, and children. This performance is not a historical play or a romanticized drama about the hardships of mining; it is a call to arms in the face of global warming, an indictment of the excesses of the privileged class, a remembering of the forgotten.

We are comforted by facts, by the familiarity of things we know to be “true.” The sun rises in the east. There are twenty-four hours in a day. I exist. These truisms simplify our lives, enable us to get through the process of living. We are not afraid to leap into the air, because we know we will land on the ground. All That Remains explores the possibilities that exist beyond these everyday patterns, that blur the lines between truth and fiction.

"All That Remains" premiered at the 79th Venice Film Festival from August 31-September 11, 2022. It was also screened at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Greece), Filmmakers (Italy), and the Luxembourg Film Festival.

This project is sponsored by a grant from the Taiwan Creative Content Agency.

There is something unnerving about the ghostly shape left on a wall after we remove a painting. And in the worn foot patterns on a carpeted floor and the smudged fingerprints on a child’s toybox. These traces that linger after we are gone… And in these times of military invasions and pandemic losses, it is easy to become subsumed by the presence of absence, to become acutely aware of the shadows that move among us.

Combining the image-based surrealism of Riverbed Theatre and the innovative aesthetics of Formosa Circus Art Company, this production celebrates the magical possibilities of a new form of Total Theatre. In this time of physical and social distancing, dreams and shadows provides a poetic space for reflection, a glimmer of light shining through the darkness.