Contemporary choreographer and T.T.C. Dance (張婷婷獨立製作) founder Chang Ting-ting (張婷婷) died on Wednesday morning at the age of 45, less than a year after she was diagnosed with cancer, her company announced.
In spite of her illness, the always ebullient Chang continued to teach, choreograph and travel with her company for performances in Taiwan and abroad.
Her final dance, 2018 Deja vu (既視感) opened at the National Experimental Theater in Taipei on Nov. 30 last year, and proved to be a very engaging and technically demanding piece.
Photo courtesy of T.T.C. Dance
The arts were part of Chang’s family background — her mother was a well-known watercolor painter and her father worked in the design field — and she developed a love of dance at an early age.
After graduating from National Taiwan University of Arts’ (NTUA) dance department, Chang pursued further dance study in the US, where she earned a second bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, a masters in fine arts in choreography from the University of California, Irvine, and a doctorate in dance history and theory from University of California, Riverside.
She was awarded an Andrew Mellon Post-doctoral fellowship in dance at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, where she worked from 2008 to 2010.
After 16 years in the US, she moved back to Taipei, where she became a visiting assistant professor at NTUA and a guest lecturer at Chinese Culture University, and quickly began making a name for herself in the local dance world, both as an inspiring teacher and as an innovative choreographer.
She established a company in October 2012, and her first work for the troupe, Cabinet Anthropomorphique (抽屜人), premiered in December 2012 at the Red House Theater in Taipei.
It was nominated for the 2012 Taishin Arts Award and selected by the Ministry of Culture to be part of the Taiwan program at the 2013 Festival Off d’Avignon in France, the first of many international engagements for Chang and her young company.
Chang was passionate about encouraging young dancers and choreographers, and using connections forged over the years at the American Dance Festival and elsewhere, she organized three critically praised Dance Round Tables — in 2013, 2016 and last year — that featured works by choreographers from Taiwan, around Asia, the US and Europe.
Her own works won several awards, including the Grand Prize in the 2016 McCallum Theatre Choreography Festival in California for Persistence of Memory (時空抽屜), a reprise of her 2007 win at the theater for Falling Petals at the 10th Annual Dance under the Stars Choreography Festival. She also won the 2012 National China Lotus Cup Contemporary/Modern Dance Competition for Sync.
She also won commissions from Texas Woman’s University, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and other schools, and worked as a consultant on a variety of dance and theater productions in Taiwan.
Memorial service details are to be announced after the Lunar New Year holiday, T.T.C. Dance said.
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