Before the storm

Dance as an everyday culture in parks and squares

The German philosopher, writer and Taiwan expert Stefan Thome writes: ‘Dancing in carefully rehearsed choreography in groups is a widespread leisure activity in Taiwan, almost everyone does it except me. The ladies in the park next to my living room don't need a mirror, but young people need to make sure they look like stars, so they come here every afternoon and fill the area with life.’ What Thome observes in Taipei also takes place in every other Taiwanese city, for example in the park surrounding the Weiwuying - National Center for the Arts in Kaohsiung, where Taiwan Dance Platform took place at the end of November 2024. Here, elderly and old couples dance passionately for hours to live music and enjoy the public strolling around and taking pictures. What is only just becoming established as community dance in public spaces in Europe has traditionally existed in Taiwan for a long time. Taiwan is a dance nation! 

Top-class cultural centre

But first the Weiwuying - National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, because this cultural centre plays a real leading role in the platform. While at other festivals and platforms around the world, the professional audience is bussed from one venue to another, Kaohsiung in the southwest of the island of Taiwan has a top-class cultural centre that really combines all the conditions a platform needs to be successful: artistically inspiring architecture, large and small stages, showcases in foyers and open air, and a large outdoor stage that invites audiences to performances free of charge and with a low-threshold offer.

People, including those who may never have come into contact with contemporary dance before, can stroll through the centre and marvel at the Resident Island Dance Theatre's ‘In Factory’ in a glass box stage in Crown Hall, for example. Choreographer CHANG Chung-an places his dancers on moving platforms on which they work against the imbalance of mechanical forces. As their bodies interact with the dynamic movements of the machines, unpredictable choreographic interactions are created that keep the audience glued to the glass box until the end of the performance. At the same venue the following day, CHEN Chu-chun, the youngest choreographer on the platform, who was born into a family of potters in Hsinchu, shows excerpts from ‘A Journey of Rokuro’. Here she places her dancers on an oversized potter's wheel - inspired by Japanese traditions, where CHEN observed potters at work on traditional foot-operated rokuros.

The dance film programme at festivals is often moved to inhospitable cinemas in the afternoon, which are then hopelessly undercrowded. Not so in Kaohsiung. Here, excellent dance films presenting historical, personal, collective, physical and documentary memories were shown in small, specially built ‘tea houses’ in the foyer of the cultural centre, which were occupied around the clock by individuals or couples. An elaborate but artistically outstanding concept.

Responsible for this dance platform was the congenial management duo Raymond Wong, Deputy General Director, and Joanna Wang, Director of Artistic Planning at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts in Weiwuying and former Director of International Affairs of the world-renowned Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. They proved to be outstanding hosts in every respect. An enriching international platform, brilliant receptions, numerous free performances for a large audience, especially on the outdoor stage and an impressive organisation that some organisers now want to take home as an example for their own dance platforms. 

Indigenous dance

Taiwan is justifiably proud of its rich indigenous culture - including its dance culture. The excursion to the indigenous and traditional mountain village of Timer, where Tjimur Dance Company lives and works, was an eventful and artistic highlight. The Tjimur Dance Theatre is Taiwan's first professional dance company to focus on the contemporary Paiwan people. Founded by artistic director Ljuzem MADILJIN in 2006 with Baru MADILJIN as dance director and choreographer, the company is dedicated to interpreting contemporary experiences through ancient ballads. Tjimur Dance Theatre uses song as a guide for dance movements to accompany the extraordinary physical expressions of the Paiwan culture. Their unique style between indigenous forms of expression and absolutely contemporary, digital and interactive forms of expression is currently bringing this company to international stages. In Germany, after a successful presentation at the nrw 2022 dance fair, the company could be seen at international DANCE festival in Munich in 2023 and at the Kunstfest Weimar in 2024. In case they continue to develop as consistently and radically between the two poles of tradition and modernity as in ‘Go Paiwan’, this company will have a great international future ahead of it.

Bulareyaung Pagarlava also is a member of the Paiwan tribe. He wanted to become a dancer when he was twelve years old. After graduating from the dance department of National University of the Arts in Taipei, Bulareyaung joined the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. He received a scholarship from the Asian Cultural Council to study in New York in 1998 and has created dance pieces for Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, Cloud Gate 2 and the Martha Graham Dance Company. Following this international career, Bulareyaung began to refocus on his identity as a member of the Indigenous community. This process of self-discovery led him to found the Bulareyaung Dance Company in Taitung in 2015 and embark on a new journey of nurturing young dancers and producing performances for indigenous people. At the dance platform he presented the piece ‘Colors’ in rubber boots on the large outdoor stage - a humorous production in the best tradition of folk theatre with the greatest possible accessibility for the audience.

As a member of the Truku tribe and dance artist, Watan Tusi explores indigenous music and dance beyond traditional rituals and commercial performances. ‘Footprints’ works with the meaning of the sound of footsteps. Rhythmically ritualised stomping in repetitive formations creates a meditative pull - presented on a magnificent outdoor stage on a sunny afternoon at the Weiwuying - National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts. Even the atmosphere under a blue sky is a delight.

Body - The History of Dance

The fact that dancers also incorporate (their) own dance history is not a new realisation. Two dance productions, among others, exemplify the theme of the Taiwanese platform ‘Body - The History of Dance’. The official stage programme opened on the first evening with a piece developed by long-time dancer LIN I-fang together with visual artist Jocelyn Cottencin. She reflects on the development of her career as a performer and choreographer thats covers 30 years of experience and rewrites parts of it. She combines flashes of light torn from memory, moments of magic, reinvention and reappropriation of figures or stories to create a piece that settles somewhere between performance and choreography in a mystical natural stage setting with rising and receding fog, which is also populated by ghosts and imaginations. Unfortunately, international audiences were unable to fully appreciate the text-dominated performance, as the Taiwanese language was not subtitled in English and the projected French slogans are barely understood in Taiwan. Supplementing this would be a suggestion to make it more accessible for international guest performances.

The project ‘A room by the Sea’ presented in the pitching, in which YEH Ming-hwa merges her dance models from romantic European ballet (‘La Sylphide’), historical Taiwanese-Chinese dance and contemporary forms of expression in a lecture performance with film and language to create an atmospheric overall picture, seems more tangible, especially in the concluding discussion. With a little dramaturgical help, this is a good project that fans out the history and genesis of contemporary dance from various dance traditions in Taiwan.

With this in mind, it might turn out a good idea to organise feedback or dramaturgy sessions with the international guests at the next platform.

Contemporary Dance Tradition

Although the younger and more self-confident generation of choreographers is clearly distancing itself from the world-famous Cloud Gate Dance Theatre - which, after all, brought contemporary dance from Taiwan to the world stage for the first time - the influence of Lin-Wei Ming's great role model is still visible. For example, in the production ‘Ink’, in which choreographer HUANG Yi deconstructs and reconstructs the work ‘Silent Music’ by calligraphy master TONG Yang-tze in his dance performance. The dancers' bodies are like brushes that leave heavy and light strokes in the space. HUANG Yi translates the energy of physical movement into the lines and curves of calligraphy and creates sophisticated movement sequences in his dance piece that are reminiscent of the grand master Lin-Wei Ming. At the same time, the innovative choreographer sets an example for the future by inviting the audiovisual artist Ryoichi Kurokawa to translate the cursive lines of the characters into flashes of light and sound. In doing so, he develops his very own expressive power.

Gender issues of all kinds have shaped contemporary dance as well as Pina Bausch's dance theatre since the 1970s and 1980s. Choreographer SU Pin-Wen presented the theme in Chinese-Taiwanese in the form of a conceptual performance in the pitching on the first day of the platform. SU Pin-Wen performs the suffering and absurdity of the ‘leftover woman’, as women over 27 who are still single are called in Chinese cultures worldwide, in a drastic and cheeky way. The theme and performance: one of a kind!

Taiwanese LIU I-ling, who was a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company in New York for 12 years and now works with visual artists, photographers, composers, directors and actors, brings with her a long contemporary tradition from the USA. Her works deal with memory, trauma, freedom of speech and the definition of ‘technology’.

The duet ‘Adam & Eve’ by CHIEN Ching-ying & Issue PARK is amusing and technically virtuosic and deals with individuality in a fun and combative way.

Community dance as a stage programme

In ‘Party’, choreographer LIN I-fang uses Feldenkrais methods to guide a large group of amateur dancers and encourages them to develop their movements in a balance between imitation and free expression. Through joyful dance improvisations, they develope a party, supported by the powerful music and soulful voice of PJ Harvey, creating a space that transports emotions and empathy and engages the enthusiastic audience.

With ‘Hand in Hand, We Dance’, Shimmering Production brings older women from different regions of Taiwan to the stage, bringing the dances and cheerleading of their youth to life in front of a large audience and creating a magic that lingers for a long time. It's great fun for the audience and performers on the large outdoor stage of the cultural centre in front of hundreds of visitors, who are all swept off their feet and encouraged to dance along. It is reminiscent of the successful production ‘Dancing Grandmothers’ by South Korean choreographer Eun-Me Ahn, which has been touring successfully around the world for years.

SU Wei-chia and his company Horse toured with Free Steps - Nini, a solo under a street lamp for public spaces not only at the Darmstadt Theatre and the international festival DANCE in Munich, but also worldwide, captivating people of all kinds in all weathers with extreme torsions in FANG Yu-ting's dance under magical lighting. 

Programme selection by Chou Shu-Yi

The Taiwanese choreographer Chou Shu-Yi is responsible for selecting the programme for the 2024 platform. Originally coming from classical Russian ballet, in recent years he has increasingly worked in public spaces out of conviction, bringing together dancers from different backgrounds and styles. He made his debut with his interpretation of ‘Bolero’ in the streets of Kaohsiung and has toured 38 different cities and communities with over 100 performances. He is genuinely interested in audiences in the streets and squares. Like many Taiwanese artists, he is also very open to completely different art forms and genres. In 2022, together with film director Singing CHEN, he created the VR production ‘Afterimage for Tomorrow’ and, after extensive research, a dance film. To no surprise this artist, who is constantly questioning and developing himself, was asked to select the programme.

Chou Shu-Yi curated the programme with great openness and curiosity, showing who of the international scene is currently collaborating with Taiwanese dancers and institutions. He is interested in finding out from international co-operation partners why they work here and what they love about Taiwanese culture. He also has the courage to present productions that are not yet ready for the international market. It is important to him to show productions and artistic approaches beyond Western labels for Asian dance and gives guests from all over the world a good insight into the broad spectrum of the scene. For example, with a classical dance theatre production in the Pina Bausch-Folkwang tradition by German choreographer Jan Möllmer with dancers from different regions of Taiwan who question their artistic origins. Or a major production from Singapore, ‘Invisible Habitudes’ by Kuik Swee Boon, in which the connection to the host country lies in the fact that the well-known multidisciplinary Taiwanese music artist Yujun Wang is responsible for the live soundtrack. Or a work like ‘Cercle’, which integrates hip hop, Thai and Lao dance.

Political dimensions

Chou Shu-Yi herself will create a commissioned work ‘Water Falls’ for the Festspielhaus Hellerau, Germany, in 2025 together with the German-based choreographer LO Fang-yun and her collective Polymer DMT. It will reflect on questions about the influence of political systems on individual development. Who writes history and determines our view of the world? What is Chinese, Taiwanese or German?

This question is linked to a baseball photo from 24 November 2024 with a famous Taiwanese player, Chen Chieh-hsien, pointing his three-run homer at the empty space on his shirt during the Baseball World Cup. This photo was presented twice during the pitching sessions of the Taiwanese artists at the Taiwan Dance Platform. Because: ‘everybody had it's name on it - except Taiwan’. Young, diverse and strong in their artistic expression, the selected choreographers present their current, often political dance productions on two pitching mornings. They are all united by pride in their nation Taiwan, its cultural identity and, above all, its democracy.

Dance from Taiwan in Germany and around the world

From indigenous dance forms to innovative works in the fields of VR, robotics and film, the range of dance from Taiwan is very broad. Choreographers are working internationally and across disciplines with audiovisual artists and opening up to new audiences.

The presence of Taiwan's dance scene is growing rapidly. In Germany, Taiwan had one of the largest booths and a diverse programme at the international dance fair nrw in Düsseldorf in 2022 and 2024 and presented dance highlights at the international festival DANCE 2023 in Munich, at the Kunstfest Weimar and at Theater Darmstadt.

In addition, the potent curators, dramaturges and agents Gwen Hsin-Yi Chang, Tzu-Yin Hsu and Betty Chen represent the Taiwanese dance scene in Germany at important interfaces.

It is expected that Taiwan will soon storm the global dance map and fill it like the small regions of Israel, Flanders and Quebec have done for the past few decades, which in this way also stand out and assert themselves against the cultural superiority of their neighbouring countries. The only thing missing are the really big, dramaturgically sophisticated productions that are co-produced internationally in order to be at the forefront in the future. Because: In dance Taiwan already has its name!