Dance for a dream

Daughters, often the apple of their parents' eyes, can often be a means to line the family coffers when times are bad and this is the focus of the Assembly Dance Theatre's (組合語言舞團) new production 3030 US Dollars (為著十萬元).

Taking from the popular Taiwanese song For NT$100,000 (為著十萬元) which tells the story of a cruel mother who forces her daughter to marry their neighbor in return for NT$100,000, three young choreographers, Chou Hsu-yi (周書毅), Hsu Yu-ru

(徐玉如) and Lin You-ru (林祐如), have produced a show which laments the struggles of modern life under the strain of lackluster economic growth.

The Assembly Dance Theatre, founded in October 1993 by Professor Yang Kuei-chuan (楊桂娟), the current artistic director, has enjoyed widespread acclaim both at home and abroad.

Following three principles of "going modern, branching out from

traditional dancing and caring for life," the group has performed 132

productions and impressed choreography pundits in the US with its previous productions, namely Gift and Lily.

Yang's company successfully

marries post-modern dance methodology with minimalist sensibilities to

create a new, athletic aesthetic.

As contemporary dancers and critics in the West look to the East and its cultural influences such as tai-chi for inspiration, the Assembly Dance

Theatre drawn on its roots in Taiwan to form productions that are

simultaneously Eastern and Western.

The group commissions works from foreign artists, trains dancers and through public education promotes dance in Taiwan.

In US 3030 Dollars a Taiwanese fortune teller guides the performers, who dance to Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, through their dreams.

"For NT$100,000 refers to the

difficulty of life in times gone by when many people sold their daughters into marriage. In fact, this still goes on. Therefore, the song becomes emblematic of people who are faced with a cruel life when they are poverty stricken and are in distress," Yang said.

Tickets are NT$350 and are available through www.artsticket.com.tw.

Performances tomorrow, 7:30pm at Taoyuan County Government Cultural Affairs Arts Hall, (桃園縣政府文化演藝廳), Thursday 2:30pm, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 2:30pm and 7:30pm at the Crown Arts and Culture Center theater (皇冠藝文中心小劇場), at 50, Ln 120, Dunhua N Rd, Taipei. -- Steve Price