Just three months after their last show, the men of Horse
(驫舞劇場) will open next Friday with a full-length program unlike anything they’ve tried before.
This time the troupe is focusing on individually created works, a mix of solos, duets and group pieces, along with two solos by American choreographer Eliot Feld.
Given that Horse has basically done just a show a year since it was founded in 2005 as a dance collective, a logical question would be why another show so soon?
Blame it on Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集) founder Lin Hwai-min (林懷民).
“We wanted them to choreograph because Mr Lin said ‘You guys should work like real choreographers, choreographing every day,’” Horse artistic director Chen Wu-kang (陳武康) said in a telephone interview on Tuesday morning.
“We keep doing collaborative stuff, but it starts to look the same. I love that, but we are afraid that one day they will lose themselves and [won’t be able to] choreograph on their own ... we have to give them a chance to explore,” he said.
The “we” Chen was referring to was another cofounder of the company, Su Wei-chia (蘇威嘉), and the “they” were Chang Tzu-ling (張子凌), Hung Huai-te
(黃懷德) and Chang Chien-chih (張堅志).
One member of Horse who is in no danger of losing his own voice is Chou Shu-yi (周書毅), fresh from his triumph at Sadler’s Wells Theater in London, the first winner of its Global Dance Contest. Chou will be performing his own solo Start With the Body as well as a piece that Chen created for him back in 2007.
“I’ve known him for so long but that was the first time I really looked at him,” Chen said of Chou. “It’s a long solo, nine minutes ... you’ll see a person struggling for air. I wanted to get all the juice out of his body and I think I succeeded.”
WHAT: Horse, M-Dans 2010
WHEN: March 5 and March 6 at 7:45pm, March 6 and March 7 at 2:45pm
WHERE: Metropolitan Hall (城市舞台), 25, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段25號)
ADMISSION: NT$500 and NT$700, available at the NTCH box office or through www.artsticket.com.tw
Chen said Taipei audiences will see him in an unusual light when he performs Proverb, a 14-minute solo Feld created for him in 2004.
“I wear doctor’s gloves and hold two light bulbs in my hands. I decide which part of my body will be seen. It’s a little poetic, theatrical dance. I will dance like you have never seen here, the old-fashioned way,” he said.
Feld’s Zeppo will have its world premiere next Friday. It is a solo he created for Su after seeing him in Horse’s 2008 show Bones.
“Feld said ‘I have to work with that boy if he can give me four weeks’ ... so Wei-cha went to New York,” Chen said, adding that Feld has since decided to turn Zeppo, which is about the fourth brother of the Three Stooges, into a full-length work, and Su will return to New York to work with him on it.
Su’s own piece on the program, In, is an attempt at improvisation.
“We don’t like improv so we forced ourselves to do it,” Chen said. “The music is set but the sound team can decide when to play it. Four cues, they can decide even when we go on stage.”
Hung’s piece Sunday is a solo he created by “playing with all the props in the studio,” including a bicycle and a mop, Chen said, while Chang Chien-chih’s duet is “all playground.”
Rounding out the show is Chen’s five-man piece Landscape, which was influenced by the Vincent Van Gogh exhibition now on display at the National Museum of History, while Chang Tzu-ling’s That’s It is a trio set to John Adams’ Hoodoo Zephyr.
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