Platforms to showcase the works of young, or semi-young, Taiwanese choreographers have been popping up around the nation over the past decade. The National Theater Concert Hall has been doing them as part of its “new stars” programs for dance, theater and music, Ho Hsiao-mei (何曉玫) has her annual New Choreographer Project, Chou Shu-yi (周書毅) curated the Next Choreography Project, while the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park’s Song Yan Creative LAB jumped on the bandwagon and National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying) launched its dance platform two years ago.
However, most of these programs have focused on freelance choreographers, not those who work regularly with one or more small companies or have started their own troupes.
The Go Dancing (2018相遇舞蹈節) festival that opens tonight Huashan 1914 Creative Park’s Umay Theater is aimed at remedying that shortcoming, as well as simply celebrating the diversity of Taiwan’s dance world and encouraging exchanges with dance audiences.
Photo courtesy of Sun-Shier Dance Theatre
The Sun-Shier Dance Theatre (三 十舞蹈劇場) teamed up with the park to produce the festival, which features eight choreographers and their troupes, divided into three different themed programs, each running about an hour.
Program A’s theme is “flipping the space,” Program B’s is “topics of attention” and Program C’s is “new people of attention.” Most of the dances on the three programs are either excerpts from longer works or newly edited versions of short dances.
The festival opens tonight with Program B, which will be repeated at Sunday’s matinee. It features an excerpt of 2016’s Disappearing City (消逝的城市) by choreographer Hsieh Pei-shan (謝佩珊) of the Kaohsiung-based HPS Dance Theater, which was inspired by the gas pipeline explosions in that city in 2015.
Photo courtesy of Sun-Shier Dance Theatre
The second piece is also an excerpt from 2016, Lai Si-ying’s (賴思穎) Lost, Go (失。去) about caring for the elderly, especially those with dementia.
Program C will be performed tomorrow night and at Saturday’s matinee, and features works four choreographers: Hsu Cheng-wei (許程崴), who formed his own troupe, Hsu Chen Wei Dance Company (許程崴製作舞團), two years ago; Chang Kuo-wei (張國韋), Wang Hsiu-shan (汪秀珊) and Lin Junyu (林俊余)
Program A will be performed on Saturday and Sunday evenings and features two 30-minute dances, one by Yang Nai-hsuan (楊乃璇), founder of Les Petites ChosesProduction (小事製作), and one by former Sun-Shier dancer Lin Yi-jie (林依潔), who has created several works for that troupe.
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