A group of dance students from Taiwan have been invited to perform at the Jose Limon International Dance Festival in New York City, which opens on Tuesday, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Limon Dance Company.
The two-week festival at the Joyce Theater features dancers from 16 companies and schools and from seven countries. The Taiwanese contingent, which leaves for the US today, is the only one from Asia.
What makes the invitation special is that the students are not from the powerhouse dance department at Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) or its older rival, National Taiwan University of Arts — the alma maters of so many of Taiwan’s best-known dancers and choreographers — but from the University of Taipei, formerly known as the Taipei Physical Education College before its merger with the Taipei Municipal Education College.
Credit: Courtesy of Sandy Ouyang
However, there is a strong connection between the University of Taipei and the Limon company in the form of assistant professor Wang Ru-ping (王如萍), who danced with the troupe for five years before returning to Taiwan and joining the academic world.
The links between Taiwan and the Limon company and school go back decades. Wang learned the Limon technique as an undergraduate at TNUA from Lo Man-fei (羅曼菲), who had studied at the Limon School in New York, while several other Taiwanese have danced with the company, including Yu Cheng-chieh (余承婕) and Lin Hsiang-hsiu (林向秀).
The piece that Wang’s students are to perform is a suite from A Choreographic Offering, something she is very familiar with, having performed the hour-long full-length work many times during her career. The suite is a 20-minute excerpt.
Wang auditioned and selected 16 dancers, who spend much of their summer vacation rehearsing the work, but for budgetary reasons, Wang could only pick 10 to go to New York: six seniors, two juniors, one sophomore and one freshman.
However, the full cast is scheduled to perform in May next year during the school’s annual concert.
At a rehearsal/press conference on Tuesday at the school’s campus in Tianmu (天母), Wang and the 10 students said they were nervous and excited about going to the festival.
“The performances are not just a show on stage, but a learning process” for the students, Wang said.
She said she has been telling the students to relax and not push themselves, since injuries have already forced her to make some cast changes — and required the students to learn each others’ roles in case last-minute switches are needed.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
Upon its completion next year, the new Tamkang Bridge (淡江大橋) in New Taipei City is to be an important landmark in Taiwan, alongside Taipei 101, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shi-kai (陳世凱) said today. The bridge is scheduled to be completed in December next year and open to the public in the first half of 2026, connecting New Taipei City’s Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里) districts. It is an asymmetric single-tower suspension bridge, nearly 70 stories tall, designed by world-famous architect Zaha Hadid. The bridge aims to alleviate traffic in Tamsui and on the Guandu Bridge (關渡大橋), in addition to increasing the
PROBLEMATIC: Popular hotpot restaurant chains were among the list of restaurants that failed the inspection and have been ordered to remove bad ingredients The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of hotpot ingredients in hotpot restaurants resulted in a 16.7 percent failure rate. Eight vegetables had excessive pesticide residue and two other items had aflatoxin and excessive preservatives. As the weather is getting colder, more people eat at hotpot restaurants so a random inspection of ingredients was conducted in October to ensure food safety, the department said. Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) said 60 different ingredients were tested: 15 high-risk vegetables, 15 processed food items, 10 soy-based food items, five meat items, five lamb items, five seafood items and five peanut powder
EXERCISES: A 2022 article by a Chinese intelligence expert identified at least six People’s Liberation Army assault boats hidden inside the Hong Kong-flagged ship A Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship that had been docked at Taichung Port and which previously took part in Chinese military exercises departed from the port on Saturday, the Taiwan International Ports Corp’s Taichung branch said yesterday. The statement came in response to a post on the social media platform X by Taiwan-based journalist Chris Horton that said the ship, the SCSC Fortune, had been docked at the port since Tuesday and questioned whether Taiwan has any rules regarding foreign civilian vessels that have participated in People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises. Horton referenced a 2022 article by Chinese intelligence expert Rod Lee that
RSS