A career in the arts tends to be all consuming. Dancers and musicians, especially spend years learning their craft, and then hours each day practicing, even when they are not performing. But the members of U-Theater (優劇場) have, over the group's 18-year existence, taken dedication to their art to a whole new level.
U-Theater's performances are a unique — and uniquely Taiwanese — combination of martial arts, dancing, acting and drumming. But what has long set the group apart from other companies — or even drumming troupes like Japan's Kodo — is the emphasis on spiritual cultivation through mediation, and their togetherness.
Members not only have a variety of classes every day, they also meditate, rehearse and walk long distances together. While some of the company's 17 members have a background in dance, others have studied music or theater. But Malaysian-born Huang Chih-chun (黃誌群), the company's drumming director, said what a person has studied before is not as important as what he or she is willing to learn.
“I think the most important thing is patience, because we have a long training period, 10 years, 20 years. We're not afraid if a person knows nothing. I think if you have patience, then you can do anything,” he said in a recent interview at the U-Theater's foundation headquarters in Muzha.
“We go up to the mountain every day — to do martial arts, taichi, then meditation, then basic drumming training. In the afternoon we rehearse. Certain times we do mountain running,” Huang said. “Every year we like the members to go on a retreat to concentrate on meditation.”
It is all very different from what famed actress Liu Chin-min (劉靜敏) first had in mind when she founded the company in 1988. Back then she was seeking her cultural and theatrical roots in Taiwan's traditional folk and temple performances.
She dates the change to 1993, when Huang joined the company. He had been a dancer and drummer with the Cloud Gate Dance Company (雲門舞集), but had become increasingly interested in meditation.
“When he came to the company he brought drums and meditation. He gave the company a technique and a way of surviving. So in the 15 years since he came, [and] also the meditation ... changed our performances, our way of living, our personalities,” Liu said.
Huang also composes the group's music. But the company's new production, River Journey, which premieres at the National Theater next Thursday, is even more personal for Huang, because it is based on his poetry. The inspiration for the production came from a three-month trip Huang made to India five years ago, when he was so moved by the people, his experiences, even a bird that he watched, that he began to send poems back to the company.
“The poems mention that he met some beggars, a little boy, some old men playing the flute ... and he felt some connection with them. There was no difference between them. Even when he saw the little beggar, he felt some happiness from within the little boy,” Liu said.
Huang learned, she said, that you have “to empty yourself, then love will automatically fill you up inside,” if you concentrate on living in the moment.
“We decided to make this India journey, these poems, into a performance — each dance comes from a poem,” she said. The title is drawn from one of the poems.
River Journey also explores U-Theater's interest in sacred dance, which its members began studying 10 years ago.
RSS