Focus: I Dance Therefore I Am

Focus: I Dance Therefore I Am

When you think the last of your youth has been robbed from you; your energy, ideals and dreams...

Stop! Look! Listen! Dance!

Empower yourself, stop thinking, relieve your mind of any thoughts and achieve enlightenment through dancing. Everyone needs to sing or dance. Are you missing out on this aspect of life? Enjoyed from it's purest and simplest to its most complex forms, dance has been pushing the boundaries of the human body since the dawn of man.

Dance is a natural high, both healthy and cathartic. Perhaps suggesting that if the world leaders got together and danced, all the wars of the world would be ended, could be oversimplified, perhaps even heretic, but... perhaps, just perhaps it would. On a smaller scale their is real...

Read more: I dance, therefore I am...

Focus: I Dance Therefore I Am

Shih Wei-Chieh is a young Taiwanese visual artist. One of his many projects combining modern technology and software with traditional arts was in this co-operation with Li Jiexin. In this piece he uses his musical background and objective art to rebuild a new story with no preconceptions as the movements of Li Jiexin's body interplay with and change the music and image.

Click here to see an interview with Shih Wei-Chieh and Li Jiexin explaining their work 2304+1

Read more: Project 2304 + 1

Focus: I Dance Therefore I Am

The Taipei Dance Circle was founded by Liou Shaw-Lu in 1985, formerly a co-founder of the Cloud Gate, widely recognised as one of the biggest contributors to contemporary dance in Taiwan. The Circle absorbs aspects from traditional Hakka ceremonies along with Tai Chi and other eastern martial arts to form their aesthetic.

Creeping around, past broken wires into an abandoned middle school in Xinbeitou, we went to find out what exactly the Dance Circle were up too in such a secretive location...

On arriving, the troupe were beginning a practice performance, I was speechless and heart palpitating as the tension in the line formed by line of three dancers pushed me into a corner. After, Teacher Liou enthusiastically began detailing the...

Read more: Breathe with Taipei Dance Circle

Focus: I Dance Therefore I Am

The 1980s saw in Taiwan the emergence of the Taiwanese aboriginal movement. In 1991, the “Yuan dancers” company was established in response to the demand for aborigines to be able to perform their own dances.

Before that, aboriginal dance and music were performed in Taiwan by non-aboriginal dancers who were unable to capture the true spirit of the dances. Faidaw Fagod, founder and artistic director of the Yuan dancers company, said “Most dancers apply the feet position they’ve already learnt to the aboriginal dances, with the toes outwards for example, but to aboriginals, it is not the right way to dance!” Also, these so-called aboriginal dance troupes were originally meant for tourists: they were using electronic music...

Read more: Yuan Dancers: return to the source of aboriginal dance in Taiwan

Focus: I Dance Therefore I Am

Click here for a video of the 2304+1 performance

Read more: Project 2304 + 1: Interview

Focus: I Dance Therefore I Am

Ladies and Gentlemen, here is Rock in Hose!!

The burlesque dance troupe was formed in 2009 in Taiwan. Please meet Alita d'Bone and Trixie Treatz from Canada, Kitty N. Heat and Amor Galore from the U.S., Duke Vita and Onyx from South Africa.

Read more: In Bed with Rock in Hose

Focus: I Dance Therefore I Am

On June 1st 2010, Kazuo Ohno, one of Butoh's two great pioneers, passed away aged 104. Below are some inspiring words he donated to the universe in 1998:

A Message to the UniverseOn the verge of death one revisits the joyful moments of a lifetime.One's eyes are opened wide-gazing into the palm, seeing death, life, joy and sorrow with a sense of tranquility.This daily studying of the soul, is this the beginning of the journey?I sit bewildered in the playground of the dead. Here I wish to dance and dance and dance and dance, the life of the wild grass.I see the wild grass, I am the wild grass, I become one with the universe. That metamorphosis is the cosmology and studying of the soul.In the abundance of nature I see the foundation of...

Read more: Sannyas Meditative Theatre: Kazuo Ohno's seeds planted in Taiwan

Focus: I Dance Therefore I Am

At the end of 2004, a group of young Taiwanese dancers founded their own dance group, "Ma-Chang" (馬場), to continue their passion for dance and to cooperate in-depth. “Ma-Chang” means “horse ranch” and they named it thus for two reasons. First, two of the group members were born in the year of horse according to the Chinese zodiac. Second, the image of horses running wild and free inspired the dancers.

They asked the calligrapher Zhang Mei-Ju to make a representative seal for their dance group, but Master Zhang disliked their original name. After they explained their intentions, Zhang suggested that they could change the name to “Biao” (驫 has three Chinese characters for horse - 馬 - stacked in a pyramid shape), which...

Read more: Dancing as galloping horses