Liu Kuan-hsiang (劉冠詳) should be feeling pretty good right at this stage in his life: last year’s work, Kids (我知道的太多了), won him a six-month grant from Cloud Gate Theater, the Performing Arts Award at the 15th Annual Taishin Arts Award ceremony in May and has taken him to Denmark and Beijing this year, with a trip to Japan yet to come.
Many people, including Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集) artistic director Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) have said they expect great things to come from him.
Liu sounded upbeat, but sometimes pessimistic in a telephone interview yesterday. He said that despite all the fuss about the award, what is important to him is that it serves to remind him of what really matters — making connections — which is what his work is all about.
Photo: Courtesy of Chen I-tang
His previous works have explored very personal connections. Kids was about the final months of his mother’s life. Hero (英雄) from 2014 was about his father and coming to grips with his death.
However, sometimes connections can be sparked by surprising encounters.
On a tour to Mexico with his 2015 work, Wild Never Exist (野外), Liu visited the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City and was amazed by the Mayan artworks he saw, the way the figures’ limbs were positioned.
Photo: Courtesy of Chen I-tang
“The lively forms of some of the statues. They were exactly the same images as some of my dances — I felt some connection, some of the emotion expressed by the statues, I think they transcend time and cultures,” Liu said.
The Mayan statues made enough of an impression that they inspired his latest work, Karma (棄者), which opens at the Cloud Gate Theater in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) on Friday next week.
Karma is a duet about love, falling in love with someone, he said.
There are two versions, two casts, as he will be performing with frequent collaborator and former partner Chien Ching-ying (簡晶瀅), who in February won an Outstanding Performance in Modern Dance prize at the British National Dance Awards for her performance in Until the Lions with the Akram Khan Company; and with former Cloud Gate lead dancer Chiu I-wen (邱怡文), who has performed in Kids on tour with Liu and Chien this year.
The choreography is complicated, because like the Mayan statues, Liu said that he and his partner will be facing the audience the entire time.
Liu has not only choreographed the show, or most of it — “I still need five more minutes” — he wrote songs for it as well.
“I have made a few love songs. On my trip to Beijing [earlier this month] I wrote a new song, a love song, It’s a rap song; it really changed the piece,” he said.
The change was needed he said, because during rehearsals he had been feeling cursed and he needed to express some love.
“Everyone leaves me … my parents, my new girlfriend ... gone. I really appreciate Mr Lin, he has been a mentor to me,” Liu said.
When I said that he looked pretty happy in the news footage of the Taishin Award ceremony, Liu laughed.
The win came on his fourth consecutive Taishin nomination, which is an amazing track record for a young choreographer. News footage showed Liu jumping to his feet and grabbing his head with his hands before smiling widely when his name was announced.
“The award made me come back to reality: My mom is not here. I got a million [NT dollars, US$32,900], but it reminded me of what are the most precious things on earth. I have a million, but what does that mean?” he said. “My mom, she sent me away to dance school, it was so hard for her. I feel like the prize was for her.”
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