The winners in the dance world this year were the audiences, who got to see an amazing variety of talented performers both local and foreign. However, dance lovers — and producers — were losers as well, because there was often too much of a good thing, with three or more shows competing against each other in a weekend. An explosion of festivals only added to the din toward the end of the year.
Among the standouts were some familiar faces in new — for Taipei — roles, a cross-cultural collaboration and a few big names from abroad.
The absolute best of the year came early on, when Lin Mei-hong (林美虹) brought 15 of her dancers from Tanztheater des Staatstheaters Darmstadt, where she has been artistic director since 2004, to perform Schwanengesang (Swan Song) at the National Theater in March as part of the 2010 Taiwan International Festival.
The Yilan-born Lin has maintained her ties with Taiwan’s dance world as director of the Lanyang Dance Troupe (蘭陽芭蕾舞團), which she danced with as a girl. However, her productions for that company would never prepare you for what she has accomplished in Germany. Schwanengesang is a tour de force by an artist at the height of her creative powers. She turned a tale of love, obsession and death into a thrilling piece of dance theater that more than redeemed that genre from the overblown caricature it too often becomes.
In May, Novel Hall Dance hosted British dancer Akram Khan for the fourth time, but it was the first time he has performed the kind of classic Kathak pieces that gained him fame. His Gnosis was a tantalizing, mesmerizing glimpse into a very different world.
In June, Taipei Dance Forum (舞蹈空間) moved into the National Theater for a wild, wickedly funny collaboration with the all-male Japanese troupe the Condors, who more than lived up to their prankster billing. Moon River (月球水) gave each group a chance to show their respective strengths and still try something new, with the video clips alone worth the price of admission.
Wang Tzer-shing (王澤馨) pulled off another stunning International Ballet Star Gala in August, keeping hope alive for Taipei’s beleaguered balletomes. Silvia Azzoni shone in John Neumeier’s The Little Mermaid with partner Alexandre Riabko, while Sarah Lamb and Rupert Pennefather showed a very modern angularity in Christopher Wheeldon’s Tryst before leaving the audience breathless with Frederick Ashton’s poetic Thais Pas de Deux.
The first weekend of the National Theater Concert Hall’s Dance in Autumn series proved to be the capstone for the year, with two programs — Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company on the big stage with Deca Dance 2010 and Ho Hsiao-mei’s (何曉玫) new troupe, Meimage Dance (玫舞擊), in the Experimental Theater.
Batsheva was a tour de force of glorious feet-pounding energy interspersed with bouts of quiet intensity that left you hungering for more of artistic director Ohad Naharin’s work. It was also great fun to see recent Taipei National University of the Arts (國立臺北藝術大學) graduate Lee Chen-wei (李貞葳) more than holding her own with the rest of the company.
One of Lee’s former professors, Ho also left her audiences hungering for more with her Woo! Barbie (Woo!芭比), a visually arresting and emotionally disturbing look at the role of women in contemporary Taiwanese society.
While it will probably be years before Taipei will get to see the Tanztheater des Staatstheaters Darmstadt or Batsheva again, local choreographers and producers such as Ho, Wang and Dance Forum’s Ping Heng (平珩) have consistently provided quality shows against enormous odds, and will hopefully continue to do so in the years to come.
On a hillside overlooking Taichung are the remains of a village that never was. Half-formed houses abandoned by investors are slowly succumbing to the elements. Empty, save for the occasional explorer. Taiwan is full of these places. Factories, malls, hospitals, amusement parks, breweries, housing — all facing an unplanned but inevitable obsolescence. Urbex, short for urban exploration, is the practice of exploring and often photographing abandoned and derelict buildings. Many urban explorers choose not to disclose the locations of the sites, as a way of preserving the structures and preventing vandalism or looting. For artist and professor at NTNU and Taipei
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
From insomniacs to party-goers, doting couples, tired paramedics and Johannesburg’s golden youth, The Pantry, a petrol station doubling as a gourmet deli, has become unmissable on the nightlife scene of South Africa’s biggest city. Open 24 hours a day, the establishment which opened three years ago is a haven for revelers looking for a midnight snack to sober up after the bars and nightclubs close at 2am or 5am. “Believe me, we see it all here,” sighs a cashier. Before the curtains open on Johannesburg’s infamous party scene, the evening gets off to a gentle start. On a Friday at around 6pm,
RSS