Take three men, all born in the 1980s, but continents apart — one from the world of ballet, one an actor and film buff turned choreographer and the third a musician-composer — blend together and bake for several months.
The result will be seen this weekend as choreographer Benson Tsai (蔡博丞) and his B.DANCE (丞舞製作團隊) company and Spanish choreographer Marcos Morau and members of his Barcelona-based contemporary dance troupe La Veronal present MILLENIALS at the National Experimental Theater in Taipei.
Tsai and his company have been traveling widely over the past few years, performing, taking part in — and winning prizes at — choreographic competitions and attending dance festivals. His travels have inspired Tsai to bring some of the people he has met to Taiwan, including Luxembourg-based artist Jill Crovisier, who collaborated with him on Blah Blah Blah, performed in October last year as part of the Kuandu Arts Festival.
Photo courtesy of B.Dance
Tsai met Morau when they were both on the jury for the 2016 Copenhagen International Choreographic Competition, and took the opportunity to ask Morau if he would be interested in collaborating.
Morau’s dances, often laden with cinematic references, usually take a city, country or site as a starting point, everywhere from the deepest cave in the world — Krubera Voronia — for Voronia to an ecumenical center in Houston, Texas, for Rothko Chapel, creating a link between geography and dance.
MILLENIALS is a double bill, with Tsai and Morau each contributing their own segment, using three dancers from La Veronal and four from B.Dance.
Tsai said that Morau’s piece was inspired by his visit to Taiwan a year ago, while his was inspired by visits to Japan.
For the music, Tsai tapped US composer Ryan Somerville, whom he had first heard of when Somerville was living in Taichung in 2017 for an artist-in-residence program.
Tsai asked Somerville to create a score based on Maurice Ravel’s 15-minute ballet work, Bolero.
In an interview with Radio Taiwan International this week, Somerville said that he took Ravel’s score, redesigned it, recomposed the melodies and orchestrations and added his vocals to create something more contemporary.
MILLENIALS runs about 90 minutes, with an intermission.
■ National Experimental Theater (國家戲劇院實驗劇場), 21-1 Zhongshan S Rd, Taipei City (台北市中正區中山南路21-1號) tonight and tomorrow at 7:45pm, Sunday at 2:45pm
■ Tickets are NT$1,000, available at NTCH box offices, Eslite ticket desks, online at www.artsticket.com.tw and at convenience store ticket kiosks
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