The new year is off to a promising start, dance-wise, with Wu Chien-wei’s (吳建緯) "Gardenia" (六出) starting tonight at Taipei’s Shuiyuan (Wellspring) Theater.
Since Wu launched his own company, Tussock Dance Theater (兩個身體), in March two years ago, he has produced two programs built upon on intense collaboration with another dance/choreographer.
For his first show, "Two Bodies / Xing Liang X Wu Chien-wei" (兩個身體 / 邢亮 X 吳建緯), he worked with a Chinese dancer/choreographer who has built a strong repertoire of work with Hong Kong’s City Contemporary Dance Company (城市當代舞蹈團). Last year he teamed up with Li Tzong-hsuan (李宗軒), another Taipei National University of the Arts (國立臺北藝術大學) graduate and former colleague from the Taipei Crossover Dance Company (台北越界舞團), for "The Time" (我們選擇的告別).
Photo Courtesy of Zhang Xiaoxiong
For "Gardenia," Wu picked Cheng Hao (鄭皓), whom I last saw in Horse’s (驫舞劇場) "To Every Man His Dog" (男人與狗) at the Shuiyuan in May 2013.
However, Wu also reached out to London-based Taiwanese fashion designer Johan Ku (古又文), whose sculptural knit creations Wu first encountered when he was chosen for the cast of French hip-hop choreographer Mourad Merzouki’s "Yo Gee Ti" (有機體), created for the National Theater Concert Hall’s 2012 Taiwan International Festival of the Arts in collaboration with Ku. Wu toured with that show internationally for almost two years.
"Yo Gee Ti" was the first time Ku, who established his own design studio in 2005 and topped the 2009 Gen Art’s Styles International Design Competition, had been asked to create something for the stage — although he did have some TV show experience — and he came up with costumes and set pieces that were just amazing.
Photo Courtesy of Zhang Xiaoxiong
Ku is a very busy designer, presenting his Gold Label collections annually in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Tokyo, so recruiting him for "Gardenia" was quite a coup for Wu.
Wu says gardenias remind him of his childhood home in Nantou County. In addition, the flower’s six petals also invoke the shape of a snowflake, so it represents winter snow as well as the floral scent of a summer night, he says, adding that a gardenia can also be seen as a metaphor for the cycle of life and death.
Likewise, the sculptural fabric and clothing that Ku has created for the show can be envisioned as a shower of floating gardenia petals or a swirl of snowflakes.
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