Experience pays off was the lesson I took from Saturday night’s performance of Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA, 國立臺北藝術大學) School of Dance’s annual summer concert, for both the choreographers and the dancers.
As always, I was struck by the high level of technical skill, and the ability of the young dancers to handle the demands of very different choreographic styles — and sometimes contortionist movements.
To give all the students a chance to perform in the concert, there were two casts for each work. Saturday night’s show, which I saw, featured the second casts for all but the opening work, but there was nothing second-rate about their performances.
Photo courtesy of Zhang Xiaoxiong
While the highlight of the Muted Spring concert program, and rightly so, was the restaging of Czech choreographer Jiri Kylian’s 1980 masterpiece Soldier’s Mass, which he created for the Nederlands Dans Theater, I was most impressed by Ho Hsiao-mei’s (何曉玫) renaissance of its ashes (極相林), the first piece on the program.
Set to extracts of Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (Symphony No.3, Op. 36) and Terra Tremuit The poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ Templar Chants, renaissance of its ashes is a beautiful work for eight dancers, clad simply in flesh-toned leotards, one that tests their physical abilities and their musicality.
The slow measured pace and liquid movements of the dancers as they furled and curved their bodies over and around one another or the platform on which they danced was sensual and hypnotic.
Photo courtesy of Zhang Xiaoxiong
The dance was also completely different from Ho’s previous works that I have seen, whether for her own troupe, MeimageDance (何曉玫MeimageDance), or other productions, such as the brilliantly colored, raucous and fun New Paradise of Silent Island (默島新樂園) at the Taiwan Traditional Theater Center’s Experimental Theater the previous weekend.
Ho left the audience wanting more, and the good news is that renaissance of its ashes is the first part of a longer work that should be finished in time for the dance department’s fall concert in November. I cannot wait.
However, the next two works on the program suffered from the inexperience of their choreographers, who let them drift long after they had interesting things to say, or watch. Both pieces could do with some judicious editing to bring them down to 20-minutes, or less.
South Korean Lee Jeoung-yun’s From Inside, was helped immeasurably by the music and lighting provided by AudioBanan, but every time it appeared to be reaching an end point, it didn’t. After about the third one, I gave up trying to figure out what Lee’s message might have been.
However, his use of large fans, both as mask/headdresses and props for his 20 dancers, was visually striking and added an occasional touch of humor. Hsu Li-en (徐立恩), Hsieh Chih-ying (謝知穎) and Tseng Ai (曾嬡) did a fine job of leading their fellow dancers in the piece.
Also visually striking, at least initially, was Su Shu’s (蘇淑) Chasm (出), which opens quirkily with most of the 14 dancers standing with their backs to the audience and half-hidden by the lowered front curtain, poking their heads through their legs and making a variety of faces.
Unfortunately for them, Su then made them spend most of the rest of piece either bent over, hands on the bottoms of their legs, or bent halfway backwards, scrabbling about like a gaggle of arachnids, including two that were walked by a third dancer as if they were large leashed pets.
I kept thinking that Chasm looked like something film director David Lynch might create, if his forte was choreography.
While I admired the suppleness of the dancers, my back twinged in sympathy for theirs, and I felt that, no matter its length, this is a work that could only be performed by very young dancers. Anyone older would revolt.
Kylian’s Soldier’s Mass for 12 male dancers, set to Bohuslav Martinu’s Field Mass, was a classic example of his elegant style and mastery of patterning.
It is a great test for young students, and the cast I saw were all in their first or second year at the university, so their lack of experience showed in a few places.
Overall, however, the young men acquitted themselves admirably, and provided a fitting end to what was a fairly strong concert program.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
By far the most jarring of the new appointments for the incoming administration is that of Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) to head the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). That is a huge demotion for one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tseng has one of the most impressive resumes in the party. He was very active during the Wild Lily Movement and his generation is now the one taking power. He has served in many of the requisite government, party and elected positions to build out a solid political profile. Elected as mayor of Taoyuan as part of the
Moritz Mieg, 22, lay face down in the rubble, the ground shaking violently beneath him. Boulders crashed down around him, some stones hitting his back. “I just hoped that it would be one big hit and over, because I did not want to be hit nearly to death and then have to slowly die,” the student from Germany tells Taipei Times. MORNING WALK Early on April 3, Mieg set out on a scenic hike through Taroko Gorge in Hualien County (花蓮). It was a fine day for it. Little did he know that the complex intersection of tectonic plates Taiwan sits
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path