The final leg of the Bolero in Kaohsiung tour is to begin in the middle of this month, with 15 shows over eight weekends, the organizer said.
Commissioned by the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts to promote performing arts in everyday life, Bolero in Kaohsiung is a three-year project by choreographer Chou Shu-yi (周書毅).
Chou and 14 dancers performed a 30-minute dance show at 14 of the 38 districts in Kaohsiung in 2022 and 10 others last year, the arts center said.
Photo courtesy of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts via CNA
They are to cover the remaining 14 this year, it added.
The first show this year would take place at Kaohsiung International Airport’s observation deck at 5pm on Saturday next week, the center said.
Chou created the Bolero in Kaohsiung dance show tour — which has featured performances at temple squares, school sports grounds, parks and heritage sites across the city since 2022 — based on his 2006 work titled 1875 Ravel and Bolero, it said.
1875 Ravel and Bolero was created by Chou with Maurice Ravel’s one movement orchestra work Bolero, which is known for its repeated melodies throughout the piece.
Bolero was one of the last works created by the French composer, who was born in 1875 and died in 1937, the arts center said in an introduction to this year’s remake of Chou’s work.
“The repeated melodies, akin to the passage and accumulation of life, capture the essence of ‘living in the moment’ through dance amidst gains, losses, joys and sorrows,” the arts center said.
Chou’s work in 2009 won the inaugural Global Dance Contest organized by Sadler’s Wells, a leading global dance organization that operates venues in London.
Sadler’s Wells Theatre staged two performances of 1875 Ravel and Bolero in early 2010, before the production was featured in the Fall for Dance Festival in New York in October that year.
Chou then took 1875 Ravel and Bolero on the road in his “Dance Travel Project,” presenting the dance work at public spaces, such as train stations and streets, with no stage equipment or lighting.
The public performances aimed to introduce modern dance to a wider audience in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau between 2011 and 2014, the arts center said.
The choreographer was commissioned to recreate such a tour in Kaohsiung in the hope that by bringing performing arts to the public, people who have not visited a venue or arts center might become interested in buying tickets and going to shows, the statement said.
The National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts said that its special theatrical version of 1875 Ravel and Bolero would show how the tour has breathed new life into the ever-evolving dance work with a new musical arrangement and the use of video.
Chou said he hopes people who have seen or heard of Bolero in Kaohsiung could show their support to the three-year project by buying a ticket to see 1875 Ravel and Bolero at the arts center.
Two performances of 1875 Ravel and Bolero would also be staged at the Opera House of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts on Oct. 12 and 13.
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