The Taipei Dance Circle (光環舞集), one of Taiwan’s more unusual modern dance companies, is celebrating its 25th year, a notable milestone in any field.
To mark the anniversary of the company he founded with his wife, Maura Yang (楊宛蓉), artistic director Liou Shaw-lu (劉紹爐) decided to put away his signature baby oil to return to another of the main themes of his work in recent years, “sight and sound.”
Liou created the first program in this series, which examines the partnership between voice and movement, Sight and Sound — Exercise One, in 2001. This year’s Silent Dance is the sixth in the series. As with all the works in this series, Liou has his dancers explore the sounds they emit, including breathing, as they move, while focusing on their own body rhythms.
Liou’s choreography has long focused around the dancers’ qi, the body’s inner energy, as well as their breathing. He believes dancers must first learn to harness their qi before they can free their minds to move their bodies fluidly.
The nine-part Silent Dance, which opened yesterday at the Experimental Theater of the National Theater, is a journey for dancers and the audience, an exploration of the world around us and the world within, centered on Liou’s reflection of the ecological threat facing mankind. Liou began exploring this theme with last year’s Pilgrims’ Dream, but the flooding and mudslides brought by Typhoon Morakot gave new impetus for his concern.
As with Pilgrims’ Dream, the score for Silent Dance is a mix of genres. Last year it was the sounds of wind and waves combined with contemporary Indian music and the chanting of Buddhist monks. This year Liou turned to three composers, Lu Yen (盧炎), Tseng Yuh-chung (曾毓忠) and Lee Tzy-sheng (李子聲), to create a score that mixes Western modern classical with a soundscape of electronic “noise.”
In a rare treat for Taipei Dance Circle audiences, cellist Liu Shu-chuan (劉姝嫥) and pianist Hsieh Hsin-jung (謝新榮) will be sitting off to the left of the stage, accompanying the dancers through the series of duets, solos and quartets.
In Silent Dance, Liou said he tried to use the body to convey an absence of vulgarity, emptiness and clumsiness, and at the same time show refinement, amorousness and vivacity.
At a press preview on Wednesday afternoon, however, I found the movements of Liou and his five dancers to be somewhat stiff and clumsy looking, tentative even, but I realized that was because I am so used to seeing them gliding about the floor on slicks of baby oil. Without the lubrication, they are back to appearing as mortal as the rest of us.
Following this weekend’s performances in Taipei, the company will take Silent Dance on tour, with one performance each in Hsinchu, Tainan and Chiayi.
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