One of the fun things about going to see university student dance performances is getting the chance to see young choreographers and dancers before they make a name for themselves. Taipei National University of the Arts has a record of turning out accomplished performers, and the school’s 12-year-old Focus Dance Company (焦點舞團) has played a large role in polishing that raw talent.
The company presents Seven (柒) at the university’s Dance Hall in four shows starting tonight, offering audiences a mixed bill of dances by two of the school’s teachers, one of its graduate students and two other young choreographers, all of whom are well-known in Taipei dance circles.
The title of the show comes from the seven performers. On their production blog, they say that seven is more than just a number, it is “also a story ... seven characteristics of different individuals, forming an ever-changing face of the organism.”
I’m not sure what that means, but judging by the photographs, one standout work will be Huang Yi’s (黃翊) The Slanting Man (傾斜的人). Huang, whose Body, Sound (身音) was such a knock-out for Cloud Gate 2 (雲門2) last year, won rave reviews for his two new works for that company last month. He has also contributed an updated version of his seminal work, Sound Body 2, for this weekend.
Cheng Tsung-lung (鄭宗龍), Cloud Gate 2’s resident choreographer, has contributed the title piece, Seven, while Yang Yu-ming (楊育鳴), a friend of Huang and Cheng’s from the Horse Dance Company (驫舞劇場), created Pan (泛).
Two members of the Taipei Crossover Dance Theater (台北越界舞團) who also teach at the school, Crossover director Ho Hsiao-mei (何曉玫) and dancer-turned-choreographer Zhang Xiao-xiong (張曉雄), created the final two works on the program. Zhang’s piece is entitled Autumn Song of the Yulin Ling (秋歌之雨霖鈴), while Ho’s piece translates as Hug Day (擁抱日子).
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s