Two interesting contemporary dance works will be performed at the National Taichung Theater this weekend as part of its Taiwan International Festival of Arts (TIFA) program, both by foreign choreographers well-known to Taipei dance audiences.
Multi-talented Japanese avant-garde artist Hiroaki Umeda first came to Taiwan in October 2009 for the National Theater Concert Hall’s (NTCH) World View Series: Japan Only. NTCH then invited him back in 2013 to show a work that it had co-commissioned for the 2013 TIFA, Temporal Pattern (形式暫留), which he paired with an earlier piece, Haptic (觸‧覺).
His works, while no longer the solos he began with, are still very much a one-man show in that he choreographs and creates the soundtracks, lighting and the multi-media projections as well.
Photo courtesy of ICI—CCN Montpellier
His S20 troupe will perform his Somatic Field Project’s contour, set on three dancers, in NTT’s Black Box on Saturday and Sunday afternoon.
The focus of the Somatic Field Project is on the interaction between light and the human body. Umeda tries to eliminate the boundaries between light and his dancers to create a symbiosis and turn the them into a single living organism.
The 60-minute work comes with an advisory that it includes loud sounds and strobe lighting that might bother some viewers.
Photo courtesy of S20
Over in the Playhouse, French choreographer Christian Rizzo and ICI-CCN Montpellier will present his AD NOCTUM.
Rizzo was one of four people honored in October last year a Taiwan-France Cultural Award given jointly by the Ministry of Culture and the French Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.
He has been creating dance works and other shows in Taiwan since 2006, when he had his first residency at the Taipei Artist Village. He has also created works for Dance Forum Taipei (舞蹈空間), NTCH’s TIFA programs and the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei.
His AD NOCTUM, created for dancers Julie Guibert and Kerem Gelebek, was inspired by the patterns created in ballroom dancing and folk dances. The two dancers are joined onstage by a cubic monolith that provides lighting, sound and images.
Taiwanese artist Chiang Iuan-hau (江元皓) created some of the visuals.
■ Both shows are tomorrow and Sunday at 2:30pm at the National Taichung Theater (台中國家歌劇院) 101, Huilai Rd Sec 2, Taichung City (台中市惠來路二段101號)
■ Tickets for Somatic Field Project’s contour are NT$600, while those for AD NOCTUM are NT$600 and NT$800; available at the theater’s box office, online at www.artsticket.com.tw or at convenience store ticketing kiosks
■ More information on the two shows can be found in English and Chinese on National Taichung Theater’s festival site (www.npac-ntt.org/2018TIFA).
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