This weekend Taipei National Arts University's Focus Dance Company (
This year's set of performances, titled Creative Image (亮相), represents a new beginning for the company composed of the college's dance department students. They have a new name and a new outlook. Last September, when the company flew to South Korea to participate in international competition, the school's president, Qiu Kun-liang (邱坤良), was so impressed by the professional caliber of their performance that he urged them to change their name from Freshmen Dance Company (新鮮人舞團) to something more fitting.
"We were the youngest group there. The president felt that everyone there was focusing on us," said senior company member Wu Jia-sui (
Professional is a good word to describe Focus, whose repertoire includes mostly dances composed by students, some of whom have been with the company for seven years. One such dance is Tian jing sha (天淨沙) composed by Zhang Ya-ting (
The only two pieces in the show not choreographed by students were taught to them by members of world-famous dance troupes.
Water Moon (
PHOTO COURTESY OF FOCUS DANCE COMPANY:
The other highlight piece is Set and Reset/Reset, choreographed by a former member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Abigail Yager. The piece is inspired by Set and Reset, the landmark Trisha Brown piece recently recognized by the France's Ministry of National Education as one of the three great masterpieces of 20th-century modern dance.
According to Yager, who came to Taiwan two years ago to be with her husband, the Taiwanese choreographer Yang Ming-long (
Performance notes:
What: Focus Dance Company, Creative Images
When: Tonight at 7:30pm, Saturday at 2:30pm and 7:30pm and Sunday at 2:30pm. Island tour begins on Mar. 16 in Hsinchu.
Where: Taipei National Arts University dance hall (
Getting there: Take the Danshui MRT line to Guandu (
Tickets: NT$300 at the door or through Artsticket outlets: (02) 3393 9888
The unexpected collapse of the recall campaigns is being viewed through many lenses, most of them skewed and self-absorbed. The international media unsurprisingly focuses on what they perceive as the message that Taiwanese voters were sending in the failure of the mass recall, especially to China, the US and to friendly Western nations. This made some sense prior to early last month. One of the main arguments used by recall campaigners for recalling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers was that they were too pro-China, and by extension not to be trusted with defending the nation. Also by extension, that argument could be
Aug. 4 to Aug. 10 When Coca-Cola finally pushed its way into Taiwan’s market in 1968, it allegedly vowed to wipe out its major domestic rival Hey Song within five years. But Hey Song, which began as a manual operation in a family cow shed in 1925, had proven its resilience, surviving numerous setbacks — including the loss of autonomy and nearly all its assets due to the Japanese colonial government’s wartime economic policy. By the 1960s, Hey Song had risen to the top of Taiwan’s beverage industry. This success was driven not only by president Chang Wen-chi’s
Last week, on the heels of the recall election that turned out so badly for Taiwan, came the news that US President Donald Trump had blocked the transit of President William Lai (賴清德) through the US on his way to Latin America. A few days later the international media reported that in June a scheduled visit by Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) for high level meetings was canceled by the US after China’s President Xi Jinping (習近平) asked Trump to curb US engagement with Taiwan during a June phone call. The cancellation of Lai’s transit was a gaudy
The centuries-old fiery Chinese spirit baijiu (白酒), long associated with business dinners, is being reshaped to appeal to younger generations as its makers adapt to changing times. Mostly distilled from sorghum, the clear but pungent liquor contains as much as 60 percent alcohol. It’s the usual choice for toasts of gan bei (乾杯), the Chinese expression for bottoms up, and raucous drinking games. “If you like to drink spirits and you’ve never had baijiu, it’s kind of like eating noodles but you’ve never had spaghetti,” said Jim Boyce, a Canadian writer and wine expert who founded World Baijiu Day a decade
RSS