The nine-year-old Tjimur Dance Theatre (蒂摩爾古薪舞集) is back in Taipei from its base in Pingtung County with its latest production, “似不舞[s]” — which the company refers to in English as “As Four Step.”
The company was founded in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門) by Ljuzem Madiljin, its artistic director, and her brother Baru Madiljin, who choreographs its works, to promote indigenous dance and music as well as contemporary dance. Its name comes from the “Tjimur” community of Paiwan Aboriginals, known as the cradle of Paiwan culture.
Baru, a graduate of the Taipei National University of the Arts' (國立臺北藝術大學) School of Dance, spent 10 years living in Taipei, but yearned to return home to work with a company that could tell stories of Paiwan culture and tradition on the world stage.
Photo courtesy of Tjimur Dance Theatre
The company has had a good year, earning strong reviews once again with their second appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer, with Gaze of the Kavaluan, which examined the clashes between modern life and cultural traditions, especially the notion of chastity.
Ljuzem has been quoted as saying that “everything we do is a mix of modern and traditional styles.”
The new production, which premiered in Kaohsiung last month, is set on four dancers, and is more focused on pure movement, examining the relationship between a body’s limbs and actions, familiar and unfamiliar gestures.
The basic concept is the traditional Paiwan four-step dance, with the dancers, arms linked, moving in unison, breathing in unison. It may appear simple, but the company says there is a rich body vocabulary, linked by both the movements and the chanting and humming of Paiwan singers.
The show runs 60 minutes, with no intermission and latecomers will not be admitted.
The basic ticket is NT$500, but there are a limited number of NT$2,500 “sponsorship” tickets, which give the buyer a reserved seat and a gift.
Performance notes:
WHAT: 似不舞[s] (As Four Step)
WHEN: Tomorrow and Saturday at 7:30pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2:30pm
WHERE: Experimental Theater (國家實驗劇場), 21-1 Zhongshan S Rd, Taipei City (台北市中山南路21-1號)
ADMISSION: Tickets are NT$500 and NT$2,500, available at NTCH box offices, online at www.artsticket.com and convenience story ticket kiosks. The NT$500 seats are sold out for both matinees.
This story has been amended since it was first published to correct some of the Romanization of names.
The US war on Iran has illuminated the deep interdependence of Asia on flows of oil and related items as raw materials that become the basis of modern human civilization. Australians and New Zealanders had a wake up call. The crisis also emphasizes how the Philippines is a swatch of islands linked by jet fuel. These revelations have deep implications for an invasion of Taiwan. Much of the commentary on the Taiwan scenario has looked at the disruptions to world trade, which will be in the trillions. However, the Iran war offers additional specific lessons for a Taiwan scenario. An insightful
The problem with Marx’s famous remark that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, the second time as farce, is that the first time is usually farce as well. This week Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) made a pilgrimage to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “to confer, converse and otherwise hob-nob” with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. The visit was an instant international media hit, with major media reporting almost entirely shorn of context. “Taiwan’s main opposition leader landed in China Tuesday for a rare visit aimed at cross-strait ‘peace’”, crowed Agence-France Presse (AFP) from Shanghai. Rare!
April 6 to April 13 Few expected a Japanese manga adaptation featuring four tall, long-haired heartthrobs and a plucky heroine to transform Taiwan’s television industry. But Meteor Garden (流星花園) took the nation by storm after premiering on April 12, 2001, single-handedly creating the “idol drama” (偶像劇) craze that captivated young viewers across Asia. The show was so successful that Japan produced its own remake in 2005, followed by South Korea, China and Thailand. Other channels quickly followed suit, with more than 50 such shows appearing over the following two years. Departing from the melodramatic
Sunflower movement superstar Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) once quipped that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could nominate a watermelon to run for Tainan mayor and win. Conversely, the DPP could run a living saint for mayor in Taipei and still lose. In 2022, the DPP ran with the closest thing to a living saint they could find: former Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中). During the pandemic, his polling was astronomically high, with the approval of his performance reaching as high as 91 percent in one TVBS poll. He was such a phenomenon that people printed out pop-up cartoon
RSS