Extract and Repeat is a gestural study and performative dialogue in response to a viral video posted by an anonymous Hong Kong civilian that went regionally viral on YouTube in 2012. The original footage depicts a woman frantically breaking down while repeatedly yelling “let me die” inside a subway station situated at the border between Mainland China and Hong Kong, after having challenged border officials with regards to violating hand carry export limits. Ongoing product safety issues in mainland China has resulted in heightened demands for properly regulated goods sold in Hong Kong, a former British colony who has now been handed back but retains a separate, more transparent legal structure and more advanced regulations. Individuals who are desperate for quick money, often operating on an individual basis, join a new phenomenal league of smugglers who travel back and forth across the border in efforts to capitalize on this new demand from the north, meanwhile enduring persistent shaming from Hong Kong locals due to induced scarcity of goods. The woman’s physical breakdown epitomizes the white heat of discussions of an economic issue that has had complicated spillovers into legal and cultural realms. On the other hand, my performance seeks to pseudo-clinically break down her gestures into smaller, almost primitive components, enduring a pain that is never reached in emotional and physical intensity. Rather than directing an empathizing or criticizing statement towards the individual, I am more interested in questioning the social frameworks that have encouraged such incidents and images, through my alternative physical reenactment of the incident as an observer and native citizen of Hong Kong. The piece is set to the soundtrack of Chinese Bass-Baritone Yi-Kwei Sze’s “How Could I Not Think of Her”.