Shinehouse Theatre (曉劇場) is this weekend acting as producer of the first Want to Dance Festival (第一屆艋舺國際舞蹈節), a dance and theater exchange platform for independent choreographers and performers from Taiwan and the region.
Curated by Shinehouse director Chung Po-Yuan (鍾伯淵) and former Taipei Art Festival director Keng Yi-wei (耿一偉), the festival offers a variety of experimental dance and physical theater works, talks, forums and workshops at alternative-styled theater spaces in Monga (艋舺, also known as Manka and Bangka), an old borough that is now part of Wanhua District (萬華), that was the earliest development in Taipei.
The groups will be performing not just for ticket buyers, but for international curators and local art festival organizers who have also been invited in the hopes that they might discover potential and developmental pieces.
Photo courtesy of T.T.C. Dance
The action starts tonight and runs through to 11pm on Sunday.
The live performances have been grouped under the theme “Unfinished,” and each group must set-up, perform and strike within two hours.
Some performances will be as short as five or 10 minutes, such as Andy Lin Dance’s (林則安) Arabesque or NoN defaut (無缺) by former Cirque du Soleil dancer Billy Chang (張逸軍), while Hong Kong-based Vinci Mok’s (莫穎詩) Death Mirror Chants (亡鏡吟) , described as a choreographed Land/Scape Butoh Dance Theater collaboration with Taiwanese performers, runs 30 minutes.
As a special event to launch the festival, T.T.C. Dance (張婷婷獨立製作) will perform A Blooming Tree (棵開花的樹), the late Chang Ting-Ting’s (張婷婷) 2014 work inspired by poet and painter Hsi Mu-jung’s (席慕容) poem A Blossoming Tree (一棵開花的樹).
It will be performed at 7:30pm tonight and 2:30pm tomorrow afternoon at the E Monga-Longshan Cultural & Creative B2 Exhibition Hall (E艋舺龍山文創B2—展演廳).
NT$800 buys a passport that is non-transferable, but gives the purchaser entry to all programs and activities. Single-entry tickets to individual shows or events are NT$100.
A series of three-hour workshops will be given by Emiko Agatsuma from Dairakudakan, one of the world’s leading butoh companies, but the cost for these is separate from the main festival passport.
For a complete listing of who is doing what and where, the festival has an easy-to-navigate Web site: www.wantodancefestival.com.
■ Passport tickets are NT$800, available at NTCH box offices, online at www.artsticket.com.tw and at convenience store ticketing kiosks. Individual tickets will only be sold at the Art Festival Salon and are not available in advance.
■ Passports can be picked up at Henan Rd Sec 2, Lane 125, Alley 15, No. 21, 1F, Taipei City (台北市萬華區環河南路二段125巷15弄21號1樓)
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