Artist interviews
The Tuesday sessions are brisk but revealing 45-minute interviews with the heads of the four dance companies that had been all set to present their work at the prominent Fringe venues Dance Base and Summerhall – until, that is, the world went viral.
Moderated by UK arts journalist Donald Hutera
Join the livestream directly on Taiwan Season Facebook Page and YouTube.
Hao Cheng
Hung-Chung Lai
Nai-Hsuan Yang
Hsiu-Wei Lin
TAIWAN SEASON: TOUCHDOWN
Time: 4 & 6 Aug, 13:00 - 13:45 (UK)
Artist: Hao Cheng, Incandescence Dance
Hao Cheng’s background in mathematics prior to embarking on a dance career gives him a unique perspective on both abstract ideas and flesh-and- blood performance. His dynamic solo for Incandescence Dance is a quietly thrilling meeting of popular science and the poetry of motion. Featuring a blackboard-like surface and chalk as a means of charting Cheng’s ceaselessly nimble, emotive movement, his dance gradually transforms into a visual art installation. A highly personal and proudly low-tech examination of the seemingly unresolvable contradictions of being alive, this elegantly conceived show lends quantum physics and the uncertainty principle fresh meaning and a human face.
TAIWAN SEASON: BOUNDLESS
Time: 11 & 13 Aug, 13:00 - 13:45 (UK)
Artist: Hung-Chung Lai, Hung Dance
Hung Dance’s piercingly hallucinatory ensemble work has been compared to being invited inside the mind of someone trying to find their way out of a series of troubled dreams. Set to a soundtrack as richly layered as the dancing by a cast of six, this intense and darkly imaginative performance makes striking use of props (including pheasant feathers and rattan sticks) from traditional culture. But the purpose behind these objects is far more than ornamental. The claustrophobic yet pulse-quickening atmosphere being conjured by choreographer Hung-Chung Lai and his indefatigable dancers is complex and decidedly contemporary. The result is eerie, exciting, intimate and epic.
TAIWAN SEASON: Fighters
Time: 18 & 20 Aug, 13:00 - 13:45 (UK)
Artist: Nai-Hsuan Yang, Les Petites Choses Production
Drawn from one of the most famous and popular works of classical Chinese literature, this stylishly buoyant production by Nai-Hsuan Yang’s company Les Petites Choses Production is fierce fun for all ages. Introduced by a welcoming narrator, five godly characters spring vividly to life from the page to the stage. The wonderfully game cast’s energising fusion of hip hop and contemporary dance is further enlivened by a folk-techno soundtrack. The result is a highly entertaining slice of theatrical mythology brought bang up to date for a global society that might well need of a new breed of heroes.
TAIWAN SEASON: The BACK OF BEYOND
Time: 25 & 27 Aug, 13:00 - 13:45 (UK)
Artist: Hsiu-Wei Lin, Tai Gu Tales Dance Theatre
Founded in 1988 by choreographer Hsiu-wei Lin, Tai Gu Tales Dance Theatre takes five extraordinarily versatile dancers on an arresting physical and spiritual journey. The company’s rich yet rigorous aesthetic merges Eastern cultural traditions and contemporary Western practices. The time-honoured concepts at the heart of this production are shaped by a personal concern for how human beings co-exist with each other and their environment. Rooted in such entwined and elemental forces as light/dark and love/hate, this is dance as a charged theatrical dream-ritual charting the cycle of life from birth to death and rebirth. Expect powerful imagery, emotional sensitivity and exceptional craft.
