A production that explores Asian Chinese identity through time, titled Dance A Dance From My Yellow Skin (我所起舞的地方), is to be staged by the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, also known as Weiwuying, next month.
The work’s choreographer, Chou Shu-yi (周書毅), said on Thursday in Taipei that while Chinese people in Asia share “yellow skin and black hair,” he wanted to explore this diverse group and its relationship with other ethnic groups through this piece.
Produced by Weiwuying and Singapore’s Esplanade-Theatres on the Bay, the production premiered in Singapore in February, and received a “great response,” with Taiwanese veteran artist Cheng Chih-chung (鄭志忠) attracting the most attention, Chou said.
Photo courtesy of Weiwuying via CNA
Cheng, a polio survivor, has been a performing artist in Taiwan since the 1980s.
“Taiwan is a place where different ethnic groups are looking for a common cultural bond. I wanted to use this perspective to observe the Chinese community in Singapore, which is also an island nation,” Chou said.
Five of the nine dancers in the 90-minute piece were picked through 10 workshops in Singapore, while the remaining four are performers from Taiwan, Chou said.
When they first got together, the nine dancers began their day by sharing and discussing daily news stories before demonstrating dance movements from their respective cultural backgrounds, which Chou described as sharing “physical languages.”
The dancers’ native tongues range from Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) to Hakka and English, and Chou said he also wanted to focus on spoken languages, especially the use of these native languages, and how they are gradually falling out of use.
“Through this dance piece, all of us Asian Chinese are looking back to where we came from, how we arrived here, how our family moved here and how we move forward, facing whatever diverse cultural elements remain within us,” he said.
“How much of the history of Asian Chinese is shared with other ethnic Chinese in the world?” Chou asked.
Chou described this piece as probably being his most “vocal” work because of the heavy use of dialogue and spoken words.
Dance A Dance From My Yellow Skin, is to be staged at Weiwuying on May 3 and May 4.
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