Cross-cultural collaboration and scientific research once again form the heart of Taiwanese choreographer Su Wen-chi’s (蘇文琪) latest work, Infinity Minus One (從無止境回首), which will be performed this weekend at the National Experimental Theater in Taipei.
Infinity Minus One, part of the National Theater Concert Hall’s (NTCH) Taiwan International Festival of Arts, is the second installment of Su’s “Rainbow Trilogy” sparked by her month-long residency at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2016. She won the residency as part of the “ACCELERATE Taiwan | Arts@CERN” program to pair a digital programmer/artist and a choreographer for a dance project that would explore the digital realm and the world of particle physics.
While at CERN, Su was able to observe experiments with a Cloud Chamber, which is a particle detector used to visualize the passage of ionizing radiation.
Photo courtesy of Jean-Lu Tanghe
Part one of Su’s trilogy, After Unconditional Love and Fact (全然的愛與真實), was performed in the Experimental Theater in October last year as part of the NTCH’s Dancing in Autumn series.
For Infinity Minus One, she teamed up with four Indonesians — modern dancer/choregraphers Luluk Ari Prasetyo and Danang Pamungkas, experimental musicians Rully Shabara and Wukir Suryadi of the duo Senyawa — Japanese light designer Ryoya Fudetani and Taiwanese artist Chiu Chao-tsai (邱昭財), videographer Chang Huei-ming (張暉明) and his frequent collaborator, Liao Chi-yu (廖祈羽).
Su, the founder of the YiLab (一當代舞團) troupe, said she was interested in how artists could present the two extremes of scale — a particle and the universe — in human terms and in terms of physical energy. Can one sense infinity or is it simply a feeling of uncertainty?
With those kinds of questions, one can see why Su would have tapped Chiu for the multi-media portion of Infinity Minus One. He used a telescope and a microscope to create extraterrestrial-like installations for his Light‧Scape (光‧景) gallery show last fall.
Su said she also wanted to explore how traditional gestures can be transformed and incorporated into modern artistic concepts.
The show is about an hour long, with no intermission. The TIFA Web site notes that the show includes partial nudity, smoke and loud voices and that latecomers will not be admitted.
■ Experimental Theater (國家戲劇院實驗劇場), 21-1 Zhongshan N Rd, Taipei City (台北市中山南路21-1號) tonight and tomorrow at 7:30pm and tomorrow and Sunday at 2:30pm
■ Tickets are NT$800, available at NTCH box offices, online at www.artsticket.com.tw and at convenience store ticketing kiosks
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist