Three days in Wanhua, day 2: Want to Dance Festival 2025

Wan Theater and Tanbu Cultural Park, Taipei
April 11, 2025

Three days in Wanhua: day 1
Three days in Wanhua: day 3

On the afternoon of the Saturday of this year’s Want to Dance Festival (艋舺國際舞蹈節), the Wan Theater was given over to two quintuple-bill showcases of works from the festival’s Exchange Program. They were certainly mixed in style but while all were well-performed, some struggled to communicate the choreographer’s intention. The link between programme note and what was happening on stage was not always clear.

There was no such problem with Dawn Pottery Dance Studio (東黎舞陶) and A Journey of Rokuro (轆轤) by founder and artistic director, Chen Chu-Chen (陳主晨), however. Formed only in 2023, the company aims to highlight ceramic craftsmanship through dance. It’s an unusual, possibly unique coming together of two very different arts.

The work draws attention to what Chen says is the fading legacy of the manual potter’s wheel, an ancient tool that has been replaced by electric versions. And a giant wooden potter’s wheel, about 20cm high and some two metres in diameter, is precisely what greets the audience.

Dancers Wu Yi-an (吳翊安), Luo Xin-yi (羅心倚) and Chen Ting-xuan (陳亭瑄) are at different times the potter, propelling the wheel around, and his clay, their bodies moulding around one another.

Top marks for staging and movement quality but the wheel does limit what can be done in terms of choreography and pacing. The dance is mostly floorwork but when the standing lifts do come, they were excellently performed, an act of balance as well as technique. It was a very pleasant opener, just a shame the music was rather soporific.

Best of Programme 1 was Futile resistance (抗) by Taipei National University of the Arts (國立臺北藝術大學) third-year student Liao Shih-hsun (廖士勛), however.

One immediately sensed a relationship between the three dancers, Mo Ci-siang (莫棨翔), Lee Yu-cheng (李祐丞) and Yeh Yu-wen (葉育妏). But most relationships are complex. Things are not always black and white. And that between these three was no different.

Quite often, it seemed to be one dancer against the other two, or one trying to stand to one side but unavoidable being dragged into whatever was happening. Liao slots in plenty of dynamic changes, with one excellent fast-paced section suggesting a fight, with things taking a disturbing turn when one seems to have his hands tied behind his back. Futile Resistance was short, but did everything it set out to do, with plenty of terrific dancing and partnering along the way.

The Sketch Series (速寫系列) by Chen Po-chieh (陳柏潔) and Chen Yu-fen (陳鈺分), aka Ars Association (藝術報國), is all about constructing the ‘stage’ through the interplay of movement, objects and the environment, using atypical spaces as performance sites. So perhaps it was no surprise that The Near Elsewhere, in the Geography of Seeing and Not Seeing (近他方，在見與不見的地理), the first work of the series, here adapted for the theatre stage, did not work as well as it might.

Apparently, the work sees the artists explore the worlds of internal spiritual journeys and real-life experiences, flowing between fiction and reality, and asking, ‘Where is the elsewhere?’ It’s an intriguing question for a work full of intriguing imagery. But it was hard to really fathom what it was trying to say, let alone find an answer to the question. I suspect the relocation did it few favours.

Hazy by South Korean choreographer Jeongeun Hwang seeks to focus on the organic connection between physical movement and space. She certainly makes full use of her incredibly lithe body. From a purely movement perspective, Hazy is rather appealing but, again, quite what Hwang trying to say is unclear, although there is a vague sense of memories of people we miss, presumably passed. That longing for the departed appears to grow, before stillness descends. Whether that indicated peace with herself, was again uncertain, however.

Finally, in her self-performed Prelude to Mountain Ghost (山鬼的眾生相), Wang Po-nien (王柏年) draws inspiration from the ancient Chinese poem, The Mountain Spirit (山鬼), part of Nine Songs (九歌) by third-century BC poet Qu Yuan (屈原).

The work is certainly full of ideas, and at times is quite ritualistic in a way. But while performed with focus and commitment, Wang never really got close to the ethereal sense of longing and mysticism of the poem, let alone unravel the mystery of identity as the programme note claimed.

Best of the second Exchange Program showcase, and of the afternoon as a whole, came in the shape of Raven (渡鴉) by Huang Shi-hao (黃仕豪).

Ravens appear in mythology the world over. In a legend of the Tlingit people of southern Alaska, they bring light and impart wisdom. In old Norse stories, Odin’s two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, represent thought and memory. And, of course, even the Tower of London still supports them, legend having it that the kingdom will fall should they leave. Huang takes all that, associating it with the idea of the raven as a guide and protector, a bird, which even if it flies away, remains in people’s hearts.

Following an opening solo by Yeh Chieh-ju (葉潔如), her raven, Liao Szu-wei (廖思瑋) appears. Wrapping his arms around her, he is protector, yet she recognises she needs him too. Intense and full of feeling, the duet that follows is full of interest, changes in dynamic all seemingly organic, coming naturally out of the dance and the situation. One section of high-speed hugs and gestures stands out in particular. The partnering was terrific, the couple dealing with the choreography’s many lifts and supports with ease.

Huang also knows the value of not doing something, or at physically doing little. One moment has Yeh and Liao stare at each other as they edge slowly backwards. Physically doing nothing else, but still speaking volumes.

The showcase opened with / (‘solidus’), a collaboration by Japanese dancer/choreographer Ayano Yokoyama and music producer/performer 34423 (Miyoshi Fumi). Both cut striking figures in red and purple in a work that explores the relationship between sound and the movement of the body, in one of the afternoons longest pieces at almost 25 minutes.

Very watchable, not least for the clarity and quality of Yokoyama’s movement, which frequently betrays a hip-hop influence, one could clearly see the music coming from 34423’s sound deck actively colliding with her body. At times, it was as if every beat from the music sent a lightning bolt of electricity across the stage, causing Yokoyama to jolt or otherwise react. The piece lost its pull in its central section a little, maybe a few ideas too many, but re-engaged when Yokoyama got back to her original theme.

In 90/Now, Lao dancer and co-founder of Vientiane-based Fanglao Dance Company Noutnapha Soydala, reflects on time, examining how life, feelings, societal values, the environment and the body have transformed from 1990, when she was born, to today.

Inspired by 1990, the first part features poetic imagery set along a long strip of fabric that can be seen as a pathway or river. Deeply focused and with a reflective air, Soydala moves slowly and serenely, gently touching what appeared to be figures on the fabric as though they are very special. Chanthalangsy Tannabout’s singing of a traditional poem added to the scene.

The second part marks a shift to the present and, not surprisingly, has a very different, edgy, contemporary feel, reflecting the modern world, and perhaps her situation, before ending with cries of what appeared to be ecstasy or happiness. A sense of ‘arrival’ or resolution, maybe.

In O.O.E. (Out of Energy), South Korean choreographer and dancer An Seo-yeon attempts to imagine what it would look like if our bodies, like batteries, gradually lost energy, exploring physical and mental exhaustion through repetition as she does so. Unfortunately, the choreography is simply not engaging enough to counter the silence in which much of it is performed. It was a certainly an exhausting watch.

Finally to Mouth Fur (口毛) by Shih Min-wen (施旻雯), a duet performed with Chen Sheng-wei (陳聖崴). The programme note talked of how habits, personality, and appearance are all shaped by our past before getting lost in a sentence about relationships. There was some unusual imagery, not least the use of a spiral cord to link the pair, but the piece rather got lost and communicated little.

Between the two Exchange Program showcases and outdoors, Whispers In Between (呢喃之間), a twelve-minute duet by Su Pei-Chun (蘇珮淳), was apparently inspired by the hidden stories of Monga, the district in which the festival is located, and narratives of desire and faith. The programme note also talks of the work being a “profound mirror of the modern urban psyche,” claiming that it, “reimagines the soul of the city, uncovering memories and forces long obscured by time but still shaping the present.”

While that may have been the intent, it is far from apparent in the dance shown. But what I did see is an entertaining duet by dancers Peng Tzu-yi (彭梓宜) and Hung Wei-ting (洪維婷) as they performed on an around a sofa placed with its back to the audience. The choreography takes good advantage of the furniture’s ability to hide the couple or present surreal images such as legs poking out at odd angles, before the two dancers come together in some pleasing moments.

Three days in Wanhua: day 1
Three days in Wanhua: day 3