YIELD STRENGTH
Art Gallery of South Australia · 2026
Composer in Residence
A 15-minute contemporary performance work for erhu, guzheng, percussion, body and materials.
Concept & Composition — David Wei-Han Dai
Performed by David Wei-Han Dai, Zhao Liang and Satomi Onishi / San Ureshi
Created in response to the
2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Yield Strength explores what happens when sound, body, material and cultural memory are placed under sustained pressure.
The title comes from materials science. Yield strength is the point at which a material undergoes permanent deformation and can no longer return to its original form.
I began with a simple question:
What happens when this idea is applied not only to materials, but to an instrument, a performing body, a gesture or a tradition?
Rather than using the Biennial theme simply as inspiration, I treated yield strength as a compositional process.
Traditional sounds and gestures begin in recognisable forms, then gradually shift through repetition, endurance, friction, unfamiliar materials and physical intervention.
The work moves through four states:
MEMORY → PRESSURE → RELEASE → AFTERLIFE
As pressure accumulates, familiar relationships between performer and instrument begin to change. The body adapts. The instrument changes. Sound moves further away from its expected form.
The work is not about destruction.
It is about the moment when return is no longer possible—and what might emerge afterwards.
What remains when culture, body and material can no longer return to their original form?
WATCH
YIELD STRENGTH — Performance Highlights, Art Gallery of South Australia · 5 June 2026
ARTISTIC LANGUAGE
Yield Strength brings traditional Chinese instruments into conversation with contemporary performance, physical gesture and material experimentation.
The work uses steel- and silk-stringed erhu and guzheng alongside percussion, singing bowls and everyday materials including stones, keys, wood, pencils, coins and leaves.
These objects enter the instruments not as decoration, but as agents of change. They strike, scrape, rub and interrupt familiar systems of touch and resonance, revealing sounds that sit outside conventional instrumental technique.
The performers’ bodies undergo a parallel transformation.
Established playing positions gradually give way to kneeling, extended, unstable and physically demanding gestures. Breath, fatigue, friction and hesitation become part of the musical language alongside pitch, rhythm and timbre.
At points, the transformation becomes structural.
The erhu’s qianjin is gradually cut strand by strand while the playing continues. Guzheng bridges are progressively removed. Singing bowls are nested and layered so that their vibrations interfere with one another.
The instruments remain, but their relationship with the performer has changed.
The idea of yield strength is therefore not only represented through sound.
It happens physically.
PROCESS
Yield Strength was developed onsite at the Art Gallery of South Australia from 3–5 June 2026 during my first Composer in Residence program.
AGSA created a temporary working space for me inside the public gallery, surrounded by works from the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength.
For three days, the gallery became both studio and source material.
I moved continuously between the Biennial exhibition and my working space, allowing artworks, materials, spatial encounters and conversations to feed directly into experiments with sound, movement and instruments.
Because the studio remained open to the public, visitors could see the work taking shape, stop to listen, ask questions or share their own responses to the exhibition.
This openness became important to the work.
Composition was not something completed elsewhere and brought into the gallery afterwards. It developed from inside the exhibition environment itself.
The residency became a live laboratory for exploring the space between music, visual art, body and material.
PERFORMANCE
Yield Strength premiered on 5 June 2026 in Gallery 25 at the Art Gallery of South Australia as part of First Fridays: Elastic.
The work was performed by:
David Wei-Han Dai — erhu / composer
Zhao Liang — guzheng
Satomi Onishi — percussion
Uncertainty was deliberately retained within the performance.
Zhao Liang and Satomi Onishi received the score on the afternoon of the premiere. Rather than rehearsing until every unfamiliar gesture became comfortable, the process of adaptation remained visible.
Hesitation, physical negotiation and responsiveness became part of the performance language.
The audience surrounded the performers within the open gallery, bringing viewers into close proximity with the physical details of the work: changing breath, strained posture, friction, vibration and the gradual transformation of the instruments.
Two 15-minute performances were presented, each drawing approximately 100 people.
The closeness of the setting allowed sound and physical action to be experienced together, turning the performance into something between a concert, an installation and a live act of transformation.
REFLECTION
Yield Strength marks a turning point in my artistic practice.
It was my first Composer in Residence appointment, my first residency at the Art Gallery of South Australia, and the first work in which I pushed traditional Chinese instruments this deeply into physical transformation and contemporary performance.
The project changed the way I think about composition.
I became increasingly interested in music that exists not only through organised sound, but through gesture, material, breath, friction, space, duration and irreversible action.
It also deepened a question that continues to shape my work:
How can tradition remain culturally meaningful without remaining physically unchanged?
I do not see traditional instruments as fixed cultural objects.
They carry histories, techniques and embodied memories, but they are also living artistic mediums—capable of experimentation, instability and change.
For me, the tension between those two states is where new work can begin.
Yield Strength has opened a broader direction in my practice, connecting traditional instrumental knowledge with contemporary performance, visual art and material-based experimentation.
I am currently developing the original 15-minute work towards a 45-minute full-length performance, expanding its exploration of sound, body, cultural memory and transformation.
I am interested in how the work might continue to evolve through new spaces, artistic contexts and interdisciplinary collaborations.
CREDITS
Concept, Composition & Erhu — David Wei-Han Dai
Guzheng — Zhao Liang
Percussion — Satomi Onishi
Ensemble — San Ureshi
Composer in Residence — Art Gallery of South Australia
PRESENTATION & COLLABORATION
The expanded version of Yield Strength is currently in development.
I welcome conversations with festivals, galleries, presenters, curators and interdisciplinary artists interested in presenting, commissioning or further developing the work.
