衛武營國家藝術文化中心 Weiwuying National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts

By TIEN Kuo-ping, speaker, Writing about Dance—I Review Workshop; speaker, Learn about Dance—New Wave of Asian Dance Film in the Post-Pandemic Era of the Digital Age; observer, 2020 Taiwan Dance Platform.

Due to the pandemic, this year's Taiwan Dance Platform at Weiwuying mostly consisted of Taiwanese groups. Despite the absence of direct exchange with international groups, the lack of external noise also provided us a great opportunity for reexamining the current state of Taiwanese dance scene. Although international groups were unable to come in person, we were still able to maintain international exchange during the pandemic through the use of video calls and simultaneous interpretation.

Taiwan Dance Platform helps Weiwuying fulfill its purpose as an arts center. Its diverse programs allow Weiwuying to be more than a performing arts hall, but also serve as an art museum, a dance education promoter, as well as a facilitator for artistic work development and online special topic seminars. If one were to take a sample of the current Taiwanese dance scene, one would obtain a comprehensive view of its various planes and depths. The creativity of today's Taiwanese dancers, the techniques in their bodily movements, and their exploration of dance forms shall write a new page in the history of tomorrow, and we've witnessed this progress at its epicenter.

Resident Island Dance Theater commits itself to exploring the creation of endless possibilities for the disabled. In the experimental phase of the piece Ice Age, the charming interactions through a television screen between two choreographers—one Taiwanese and visually impaired, the other French and wheelchair-bound—and the scenes of able-bodied dancers dancing alongside physically disabled wheelchair dancers effectively eclipsed our rigid imaginations. The sign language version of Tjimur Dance Theater's Varhung: Heart to Heart attempted to create a dance catered to the hearing impaired. Contemporary dance techniques were used to seamlessly reconstruct indigenous Taiwanese dance while incorporating the powerful characteristic of sign language movements, thereby expressing the most intimate thoughts of the dancers. Furthermore, with the future collaboration between artist-in-residence CHOU Shu-yi and CHENG Chih-chung of Critical Point Theater Phenomenon on The Center and the recent passing of disabled dancer David TOOLE of the British-based DV8 Physical Theater, disabled performers and the aesthetics of their body movements have received great attention, providing an opportunity to speak up for the underprivileged and bringing endless possibilities to the ordinary barrier-free concept of the past.

CHOU Shu-yi was invited to serve as an artist-in-residence at Weiwuying and lend his popularity and charisma. In his Dance Travel Project, CHOU has given over sixty performances, delving into local communities and accumulating experience in introducing dance to the general public. Now, he has been invited to cultivate the dance audience in southern Taiwan. Through this collaboration with Scarecrow Contemporary Dance Company in the immersive outdoor performance The Memory Overture of Strolling in the Park, one can further see exceptional results. CHOU also collaborated with film director Singing CHEN in Afterimage for Tomorrow—a live performance incorporating VR—at Weiwuying's Crown Terrace. The charm of the performance and the venue's unique characteristics came together to produce a winning effect and strategy for both sides.

Scarecrow Contemporary Dance Company can be said to be the star among southern Taiwan dance companies. Through the seminar Learn about Dance, we were able to see the Company's creativity from their operation of alternative spaces in the past. These legendary impromptu performances took place in all kinds of space in southern Taiwan—abandoned places, old city walls, ruins, cinemas, coffeehouses—if you missed it you missed it. In her segment of the seminar, artistic director LO Wen-jinn helped us relive those performances. Additionally, TSO Han-chieh, a former member of Scarecrow Contemporary Dance Company, held two dance classes in Weiwuying's Banyan Plaza where he took movements suggested by participants and combined them to create a dance choreography on the spot, allowing participants' first try at choreography to be a success. LO also gave a class on contemporary dance that began with simple movements, which were gradually compiled and layered into more complicated ones. Within an hour, many beginners were able to cleanly put together a complicated choreography that was originally beyond their imagination.

In addition to virtual reality, dance film is another focus of this year's dance platform. With the development of Weiwuying's third-floor space, around a dozen television screens were installed on the walls of the hallway leading to the Concert Hall. Designed to resemble an art exhibition, the Encounter．Dance Film Exhibition allows visitors to freely enjoy its many pieces at their own pace. Through various media, the dance platform takes complicated dance themes and makes them easy to digest for visitors. Additionally, the participation of audience members allows them to enrich their own lives with dance, allowing beauty and creativity to manifest.

TIEN Kuo-ping

President, Contemporary Dance Film Appreciation Club

TIEN was also a former editor for the dance/theater section of the Performing Arts Review magazine, the former chief editor for the cinema magazine Fan of the Screens, and the publisher of the digital weekly cinema magazine about cable movies.

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2020 Taiwan Dance Platform