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The Wrinkled Child

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The Wrinkled Child is a contemporary dance theatre piece that began with a simple question: how do we carry pain, and how do we begin to let it go?

We kept returning to two contrasting images—ice and fire—as symbols of pain and healing. In between, we imagined people rushing past one another in the city—wearing the same clothes, following the same rhythms. Who stops to notice the scars beneath the surface?

With six adult dancers and two children, it reflects on the emotional weight we carry as we grow up, and the small moments of softness that somehow stay with us. It's about exhaustion, tenderness, collapse—and starting again.

This is a piece for all the unspoken things. For the past we never found the words to share, but which shaped the kind of adults we became. It doesn’t try to offer answers. It simply tries to stay honest—to sit with what hurts, and maybe—through what we can do now as the wrinkled children—make a little space for healing.

Final work

Six dancers posing on a dark stage.

Pain is a rite of passage

Pain is a rite of passage, 

There are no adults in this world, 

Only -- 

The wrinkled child. 

Like the fragile resilience of grass. 

Like a mermaid taking each painful, beautiful step on land. 

Sprint, tired, clench your teeth, 

And then take a deep breath, 

Sweat drops, ice melting, 

Blooming 

Like Tears in Rain 

  • Dancers posing under stage lighting.
  • Final Show Photos：Dancers on the stage
  • Final Show Photos：Dancers on the stage
  • Six dancers holding the candles in the dark.
  • Final Show Photos：Dancers on a dark stage standing in a line
  • Final Show Photos：Dancers on the stage doing a lift .
The dancers are standing on a dark stage lit from the front and covering their eyes.

Full Credits

This is the graduation production Zidi Wu and Yixuan Qiu created together. Huge thanks to everyone for your dedication and hard work — it’s because of all of you that the stage truly shines bright like diamonds. 

Dancer:

Nell Weatherby, Kaiscott Harvey, Jasmine Springall, Carys Belle, Jiwon Oh, Alex Comben, Natalie Min, Jinyou Yuan

Creative Team:

Producer: Zidi Wu & Jiayi Fan

Choreographer: Jiayi Fan & Fifi Chen

Creative Director: Zidi Wu & Yixuan Qiu

Lightning Designer: Zidi Wu

Costume Designer: Yixuan Qiu

Sound Track: Fifi Chen & Jiayi Li

Costume Assistant: Jiaqi Huang 

Makeup: Yixuan Qiu & Momo Mao

Hair: Kathy Jung

Poster Photographer: Fifi Chen 

Rehearsal & Production Photographer: Musca Ni 

Videographer: Brian Toh

Poster Designer: Stella Yan Q

Research and process

  • Poster showing dancers performing in different settings with the credits in text and the title 'The Wrinkled Child'
  • Dancers shot for the poster and practice in the rehearsal room.
  • Dancer posed on a stage in a sideways manoeuvre . Blocks of ice are melting on the stage and the dancer is posed with their face close to ice blocks on the floor.
  • A goup of dancers are posed on the floor in rehearsal
  • A group of dancers are standing with their hands behind their head in their rehearsal.
  • Two balck and white ohotos od dancers in the studio

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The Wrinkled Child

The Wrinkled Child is a contemporary dance theatre piece that began with a simple question: how do we carry pain, and how do we begin to let it go?We kept returning to two contrasting images—ice and fire—as symbols of pain and healing. In between, we imagined people rus...

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