What's New
The 2022 Internationale Tanzmesse NRW reopens in Düsseldorf, Weiwuying and artist-in-residence Shu-Yi Chou organized an exhibition project "TAIWAN ONLINE"
The world's grandest platform for professional modern dance exchanges - the biennale Internationale Tanzmesse NRW -is set to reopen from August 31 to September 3, 2022, after in-person events were put on hold in 2020 due to the global Covid-19 outbreak. The four-day event will include performances, communication workshops, new project proposals, themed talks, exhibitions and a plethora of activities; This year, the exhibition looks forward to welcome more than 2,000 professionals in the dance industry from over 45 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa etc., to connect and build a network of international collaboration.
In 2022, the Ministry of Culture commissioned Weiwuying the task of planning an exhibition project with artist Shu-Yi Chou, titled "TAIWAN ONLINE"; to respond and look back on the abstract and concrete times in which performance arts have halted and resumed by connecting Weiwuying's Taiwan dance platform and its thread of thought in curating exhibitions. Taiwan is an island nation in Asia, and Covid-19 has led the island to rethink the meaning of "connections" and the definition of "borders." The artists' in-depth topic cultivation reflects the connection and echoes within the plight of life and explores creative methods in different distances, creating a contrast with the connection between local and international, as well as issues like bodily movement in a virtual world. "TAIWAN ONLINE" will be echoing the current situation by a cross-referencing curation concept, in hopes of presenting the truest side of life on this stretch of land during the pandemic.
After recommendations by the Ministry of Culture and Weiwuying and a formal selection process by the committee, two excellent Taiwanese contemporary creative teams were chosen to perform in-person and to participate in pitching session, one of which being Go Paiwan, a collaboration between the Tjimur Dance Theatre and choreographer Wen-Chung Lin. Go Paiwan is Lin's resident creative project that lasted over a year, and like its name suggests, is a project that "goes" on a visit to the tribal village, and is also a brand new contemporary Paiwan musical-dance creation that attempts to "remove" the stereotype of traditional indigenous dances, at the same time serving as both a domestic and international experiment or a dance program designed for specific venues. In pitching session, is a double-bill Ita and AriAri by Taiwan's TAI Body Theatre and Indonesia's EkosDance Company, a collaborative work produced by National Theater & Concert Hall in Taipei and co-produced by Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation; the roots of their creation stem from the unique body languages of Truku choreographer Watan Tusi and Indonesian choreographer Eko Supriyanto. Through the physical and mental states of Asia migrant workers living in an alien land, Ita explores how the self and others from different cultures and life experiences seek physical safety and emotional communication through music, and AriAri stems from Javanese philosophy, paying attention to the spiritual connection between oneself and the invisible companion. Their creations not only display the exceptionality of Asian cultures, but also echoes how, amid a pandemic, there is an intriguing distance between the self and others, and an unstable situation.
At the same time, to encourage Taiwan's artists, creators and professionals with the exchanges and energy brought to initiating international connections, not only did the Weiwuying integrate Taiwan's dance group information and arranged for the invited dance groups to travel to Germany to perform, this year's event will also gather the art delegation invite artists to personally view the exhibit in person, converse with professionals from different nations, observe the world's contemporary dance trends and to build an expansive network to seek opportunities for international collaborations and tight-knit partnerships.
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Weiwuying Artist-In-Residence-CHOU Shu-yi