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Giving shelter to Taiwan's young dancers

By Vico Lee
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Nov 02, 2001, Page 7

Ku Ming-shen dances Me and My Shadow. PHOTO COURTESY OF KU AND DANCERS

Now in its second year, Taiwan Dance Umbrella (狂想年代) is a performance arts festival featuring the works of aspiring performance artists given administrative assistance by established performance groups. Though the concept is already commonly practiced abroad, especially in the US, and has been effective in promoting new artists, it is just now taking root in Taiwan. In the past few years there have been some successful "umbrella" projects for alternative theater, such as the Tien Arts Festival (耕莘藝術季) and A New Era of Experimental Theater (海闊天空實驗劇展), but the Umbrella is the first such effort for Taiwan's dance circles.

Begun last year by Ku Ming-shen (古名伸), the founder of Taiwan's only improvisational dance troupe, Ku and Dancers (古名伸舞團), the festival is aimed at offering talented dance artists technical advice, financial and administrative help and a chance to stage their works. The Sun-shier Dance Theater (三十舞蹈劇場) and Acme Physical (體能極至), both of whom received nationwide acclaim for their performances in last year's festival, are representative of the stringent standards by which the artists are selected.

PERFORMANCE NOTES Reminiscence of Anping, The Square of My Double Ego and Sun Yueh-tai's Next Stop: Where? will be performed today at 7:45pm and tomorrow at 2:45pm and 7:45pm. Sunday's performance will begin at 2:45pm. Li Ming-cheng's Looking for the Shakespeare of Our Century, Su An-li's Escape, and the Inescapable Melodies and Jiang Wei-hua's Road Angle will be performed Nov. 9 at at 7:45pm, Nov. 10 at 2:45pm and 7:45pm and Nov. 11 at 2:45pm. Bill Young and Dancers' Give Me Your Hand and Bent and Ku and Dancers' Me and My Shadow will be performed Nov. 16 at 7:45pm, Nov. 17 at 2:45pm and 7:45pm and Nov. 18 at 2:45pm.

This year's line-up is a surprising departure from last year's, with many participants having no dance background at all. "In most of the pieces, choreographers worked side-by-side with playwrights, musicians or installation artists to create interesting crossover works," said Wu Ching-jen (吳青蓉), promotion manager of Ku and Dancers.

Another characteristics of this year's event is the participants' ingenious use of the venue space. "Shimin Hall was built for Chinese opera performance. Dance has never been performed there. But we find that the stage offers unlimited potential for the festival's works, which are mostly multimedia pieces," Wu said.

The series takes place over three weekends and includes performances by six new dance groups and a joint performance by Ku and Dancers and the New York-based group Bill Young and Dancers.

Today's show, which includes three performances by separate groups, displays an interesting mix of theater and dance.

Tsu Wei-yin's The Square of My Double Ego (兩我的平方) evolved from an installation piece by Liang Jen-hong (梁任宏), in which infrared rays are reflected off revolving mirrors to create the effect of a fantasy world. The dance uses the installation as the setting to tell the story of a woman's journey of self-discovery.

Tsui Chou-fong's The Reminiscence of Anping (安平追想) integrates Taiwanese-language poetry reading with traditional folk-music accompaniment. Absent of flashy choreography, the dance aims mainly to show her personal experience of growing up in Anping, a small harbor town in Tainan County.

For the third weekend of the festival, Bill Young and Dancers are scheduled to pay their first visit to Taiwan, performing two new pieces entitled Give Me Your Hand and Bent.

Having staged more than 40 works which have toured worldwide, Bill Young won the Guggenheim Award in 1997 for his vision of contemporary dance. His works explore the expressive power of physical impulses found in the immediacy of dancers' interaction. Their characteristically abstract yet intense movement demands viewers' undivided attention.

Mixed into the group performances will be Ku's solo autobiographical piece, Me and My Shadow (我和我自己的影子). With the help of video, it tells the story of a life riddled with feelings of comic absurdity and helplessness.
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