University of Taipei dance students in a varied programme

Metropolitan Hall, Taipei
April 3, 2025

University performances continued in Taipei in the first week in April with the annual production by the University of Taipei (臺北市立大學), Eddies of the Body (身‧流漫), a five-work evening of dance created by faculty at the city’s excellent Metropolitan Hall.

Helped by gorgeous icy blue-grey costumes, in her contemporary ballet Journey of Winter, Lin Wei-hua (林惟華) paints pictures of the season in choreography that seeks to transform its coldness into inner strength. Performed largely to Max Richter (who else?), the duets were particularly neatly constructed and impressively danced. There were a few moments when the stage seemed to have too much going on, resulting in nothing being seen as clearly as it deserved, however.

Ruping Wang (王如萍) takes the prize for the most unusual piece of the season with 指. While pronounced ‘zhi,’ she prefers not to translate it since, as she correctly observes, whatever language is used immediately attaches its own cultural significance. Rather she would like viewers to project their own imagination unencumbered by such references that rely on their personal experience of life.

Performed largely in silence, although monologue and music find their way in later, work uses fingers in both figurative and abstract ways, for example how they can indicate relationship, direct actions and more. Looking back, it’s surprising how many of those actions can be read with more than one intent and meaning.

The work won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I found it rather imaginative. And the closing moments to John Williams playing Francisco Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra are just perfect.

As its title suggests, Zephyr by Xu Zhe-bing (許哲彬) is all about the wind, which appears to shape the dancers’ bodies with its touch. With its pleasing patterning and clever use of straight lines as a starting point for sections, it was an enjoyable watch. There was rather a lot of canon, though; and if you are going to put the dancers in wide-hemmed dresses, maybe best not to have choreography that includes a lot of underwear-revealing floor work.

Strength and form were to the fore in Tao (道) by Lai Tzu-yi (賴姿伊), a fine work that emphasises precision and embodying the inner ‘qi.’ With moments of power mixed with those of quietness, it was a fine watch.

But the best was saved to last and Plural Bodies (複數的身體) by Tung I-fen (董怡芬). It’s described as an exploration of multiple meanings of the body as a carrier of history through the intertwining of the physical experiences of the work’s fourteen dancers with written narratives.

I’m not sure I got that, even with the opening “What is a human?” text, but what I very much did get was a mass of finely crafted dance that sort of flows in a sort of conversation between the individual and the group. Among its many features are a number of walking patterns (way more interesting than it sounds), from which dancers drop out in individual and very human solos, and some clever groupings that fan out like packs of cards.

It was all driven along by music from electronic duo Aesthetic Perfection (including a track approriately called ‘Human’) and IAMX (aka Chris Corner).

Taipei Elementary and Junior High School Performance

Two days earlier in the same venue, the rather younger students of Taipei’s two elementary and two junior high schools that have specialist pre-professional dance classes took to the stage. In choreography that almost entirely focused on the ensemble, the togetherness, spirit and energy was superb.

While not forgetting the young dancers of Dongmen Elementary School (東門國民小學), the best of the younger student works, certainly the most entertaining, was Archaeology! (考古唉呦喂!) by Du Meng-jie (杜孟潔), an amusing sort of Indiana Jones meets The Return of the Mummy piece for the 11-year-old 5th-graders of Yongle Elementary School (永樂國民小學).

Of the older student pieces, I particularly enjoyed The Swan by well-known choreographer Tsai Po-cheng (蔡博丞) for the 8th-grade (age 14) of Bei-An Junior High School (北安國民中學), a powerful contemporary work that was indeed full of swan references, and a smile-inducing Busby Berkeley moment; and Ephemeral by Chung Pei-chin (鍾佩芹) for the same school’s graduating 9th-grade. Best again was left to the end, though, and the cracking see & meet by Yang Zi-yu (楊紫妤) and the four dancers of the 9th-grade at Shuang Yuan Junior High School (雙園國民中學, the low numbers being a hangover from Covid), which involved innovative use of a table that was moved around the stage.