Taiwanese dancer/choreographer Allen Yu (余能盛) must be one of the few people in the world who willingly gives up his summer vacation to spend 14-hour days (if not longer) to do what he does in his regular job: produce ballets. < P>
Yu has returned home from his post as deputy ballet director and choreographer at the Opera House in Graz, Austria, to try to raise the barre — so to speak for — for both dancers and the ballet-going public in Taiwan. He has revived his production of La Dame aux Camelias (The Lady of the Camellias), first produced in Germany in 2000, for his small local company, the Chamber Ballet Taipei, along with giving a series of dance master classes and music lectures.
This is not the first time Yu has brought the ballet, which is based on Alexandre Dumas’ 1868 novel about the doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier and her young lover, Armand Duval, to Taiwan. He staged it in Taipei in 2003 and then took the production on tour to New Zealand. But he said he has drastically overhauled the show.
“I made a lot of changes from the version seen in 2003 — the group back then was much smaller, I had only five boys. This year the group is much better, the four leads are so good,” Yu said.
Last time around Daniel Cimpean, a Romanian who used to be a soloist with the Darmstadt Staatstheater, danced Armand. This time around he is dancing the role of Armand’s father.
“He’s really good as the father, it’s a big part,” Yu said.
In fact, Yu has nothing but superlatives to say about his leads, who include Nikola Marova, Michal Stipa (Misha) and Alexandre Katsaprov, all principal dancers of the National Theatre in Prague, Czech Republic.
“I changed a lot for Armand and Marguerite. They [Nikola and Misha] are big stars in Prague, dance all the big roles. I changed a lot for the big pas de deux because she can do everything I want. Nikola is unbelievable, her technique, the drama ... She’s absolutely perfect,” he said.
The rest of the 22-member company was recruited from an open audition Yu held in Taipei in March. More than a dozen danced for him last year in When Ballet Meets Tchaikovsky. But Yu says that every year he comes back it feels like he is starting from scratch again with his Taiwanese dancers, because most don’t dance every day.
“The third act is very hard for the whole company, it’s 30 minutes. This year they couldn’t do it at the beginning — they were so heavy [technically], out of condition. I keep telling them they have to have class every day.”
“It’s also hard for the dancers this time because they have never danced with a live orchestra, but it’s good,” he said.
The company will perform this weekend with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra; in Tainan last weekend they danced with the Chimei Philharmonic Orchestra. The man wielding the baton is Dutch conductor Anthony Hermus, whom Yu knew from his work in Germany.
For the score, Yu has chosen to mix and match from the works of Giuseppe Verdi.
“To prepare the music was more difficult than the choreography. I used music from nine different Verdi operas, put together for 100 minutes, then worked with the conductor,” Yu said.
Bringing four guest artists and a conductor from Europe, investing in new costumes and sets — none of this is cheap. But he feels it is all part of building up ballet in Taiwan. And Yu knows he can’t do the job alone.
“I have been really inspired by the chairwoman of Chieftek [Precision Co], Miss Chen (Angelika Li-fen, 陳麗芬). She has really helped a lot with the sponsorship, helped a lot in Tainan in arranging the performances. It’s important in this society to have private sponsorship — she is really setting an example.”
“You have to package everything if you want to be a professional company,” he said. “If we don’t build up the professional level, the country, the society, will never support professional theater.”
March 10 to March 16 Although it failed to become popular, March of the Black Cats (烏貓進行曲) was the first Taiwanese record to have “pop song” printed on the label. Released in March 1929 under Eagle Records, a subsidiary of the Japanese-owned Columbia Records, the Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) lyrics followed the traditional seven characters per verse of Taiwanese opera, but the instrumentation was Western, performed by Eagle’s in-house orchestra. The singer was entertainer Chiu-chan (秋蟾). In fact, a cover of a Xiamen folk song by Chiu-chan released around the same time, Plum Widow Missing Her Husband (雪梅思君), enjoyed more
Last week Elbridge Colby, US President Donald Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defense for policy, a key advisory position, said in his Senate confirmation hearing that Taiwan defense spending should be 10 percent of GDP “at least something in that ballpark, really focused on their defense.” He added: “So we need to properly incentivize them.” Much commentary focused on the 10 percent figure, and rightly so. Colby is not wrong in one respect — Taiwan does need to spend more. But the steady escalation in the proportion of GDP from 3 percent to 5 percent to 10 percent that advocates
A series of dramatic news items dropped last month that shed light on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attitudes towards three candidates for last year’s presidential election: Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), Terry Gou (郭台銘), founder of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It also revealed deep blue support for Ko and Gou from inside the KMT, how they interacted with the CCP and alleged election interference involving NT$100 million (US$3.05 million) or more raised by the
More than 100,000 people were killed in a single night 80 years ago yesterday in the US firebombing of Tokyo, the Japanese capital. The attack, made with conventional bombs, destroyed downtown Tokyo and filled the streets with heaps of charred bodies. The damage was comparable to the atomic bombings a few months later in August 1945, but unlike those attacks, the Japanese government has not provided aid to victims and the events of that day have largely been ignored or forgotten. Elderly survivors are making a last-ditch effort to tell their stories and push for financial assistance and recognition. Some are speaking
RSS