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The spirit of dance

Many Taoist adherents believe they can communicate with their ancestors through a somewhat frightening ritual known as guanlingshu (觀靈術), or traveling to the spirit world.

Similar to the Taoist ritual, Fu Zi-hao (傅子豪) believes that dreams enable the dreamer to enter a transcendent world closed to the waking person. Taking numerous dreams he's had over the past year, the Vanbody Theater (梵體劇場) choreographer and producer will present his own meditation on the significance of dreams beginning tonight at Guling Street Theater with a dance performance called The Double.

"We sometimes fall into another space-time when we sleep and are able to interact with spirits [of the deceased]," Fu said. "I am curious about this process and decided to transform it into a performance."

Fu created the performance in response to dreams he was having about his grandfather, who passed away more than a year ago. The dreams were so vivid that after waking it took some time before he could regain his bearings - a process that forced the artist to contemplate the shifting nature of his perceptions.

But if Fu's dreams saw him interacting with his dead grandfather, The Double focuses on an individual's journey within, manifested in Fu's work by the interaction of two dancers, two puppets and a variety of props found in twos.

Bach's Sonatas for Unaccompanied Violin compliments the movement on stage because, Fu said, the composition allows the imagination to fill the space between the notes as the violin plays.

"I think the character of this music can represent what exists between reality and unreality," he said.

Drawing inspiration from Antonin Artauds' The Theater and Its Double, the work employs movement as a language to express the variety of opposing forces such as life and death, shadow and light, and past and future, which Fu believes are transposed through the medium of the human body.

The Double will be performed at the Guling Street Theater (牯嶺街小劇場), 2, Ln 5, Guling St, Taipei City (台北市牯嶺街5巷2號), tonight and tomorrow at 7:30pm and tomorrow and on Sunday at 2:30pm. NT$300 tickets are available through NTCH ticketing.

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