Want to Dance Festival 2026: Curator Programme

Wan Theater, Taipei
April 18, 2026

Following the Exchange Programme earlier in the day, the Curator Programme (策展人單元) at the 2026 Want to Dance Festival (艋舺國際舞蹈節) took the viewer in a more experimental direction. Programme A certainly got off to an unusual start, the audience unexpectedly invited through the stage curtain, where they were greeted by a strange shrouded figure.

Echoing Body (迴身), created and performed by Chen Wei-yi (陳薇伊) originated as a site-specific work developed for Nuit Blanche Taipei 2025 in the Yuanshan Tunnel. The concept behind the piece of what is probably best called ‘installation art’ is that, when the body is placed within a long, enclosed underground passage, the historical weight carried by the space gradually begins to surface.

Chen’s body certainly seems to carry echoes. With the curtains closed and backed by a soundscape of rumbles, thuds, groans and whistles (Chen also devised the sound), you wonder ‘What?’, ‘Who?’, as you share the same space. With the audience sat on the floor, some standing at the back, Chen slithered and slid, reaching out to those sat in front. For a while, all approaches were studiously ignored. Uncertainty, perhaps. After a total blackout, during which Chen passed among everyone, more asking for hands finally led to two people obliging. A trickle turned into a stream. There were hugs. And then the theatrical experience with a difference was over.

Milonga del Apocalipsis (末日舞會), with choreography by founder of Gesang Dance Theater (格桑製作) Wu I-fan (吳依凡), and Wang Chen-lun (王鎮倫), attempts to blend Argentine tango and contemporary dance, allegedly inspired by human relationships in the age of AI, although quite where AI fits into things was unclear. Perhaps it’s more obvious in the 60-minute full work rather than the excerpt shown here.

Co-created and performed with Ko Wan-jun (柯宛均) and Li Hang-cheng (李杭澄), it opens with flickering spictures showing on a distant upstage television. A figure appears, their head wrapped in a scarf. Then two more. They move slowly, smoothly, as if searching for something. One looks up for a while. There’s an obvious tension in the air, and a sudden change sees one get very agitated. The highlight comes in a super contemporary that’s full of changes in dynamic. Much of it is in unison but they never touch.

Then things get odd. A sack is brought on from which a small traffic cone is produced. Then a pair of strappy heels. Then, a dancer appears wearing a harness of coloured LED lights and moves robotically. Perhaps this is the uncertainty and disorder referred to in the programme note. It ends to what I think was music by Piazolla, but while very musical, the choreography and the scene felt a long way from tango.

Where Do We Go From Here? when the world keeps changing and the familiar can vanish in an instant, asks Chen Po-chieh (陳柏潔) of Ars Association (藝術報國). Still very much a work in progress, Chen never answers her question. Rather, what we see at the moment, is something of a journey through the ever‑changing distances and desires that shape our relationships, which goes some way to explaining the map of Asia shown on a large on-stage screen.

Rather more interesting is a second screen that shows a direct feed from an upstage camera facing the audience. Us watching us watching her, simultaneously from front and back. The set up is intriguing, the dance very appealing, although the work is at its best when Chen is close enough to that second screen that the eyes do not have to continually flick between her and the live action. Now, if that screen could be bigger and upstage…

Programme B opened with COIL by Chuang Po-Hsiang (莊博翔) of D Antidote Production (身體處方), the inspiration for which came in part from a speech by Aristophanes found in Plato’s Symposium, in which he says humans were originally twice the size of those of today, and spherical in shape, with four limbs and two faces. As punishment for their misbehaviour, Zeus halved each. One soul, two bodies, with each condemned to spend their lives yearning for their other half.

And that is pretty much what is presented in a choreographic exploration initially centred around intertwining bodies. Dancers Ong Kuan Ying (王官穎) and Liao Chien-yao (廖健堯) roll around the stage as one being, bodies inextricably linked. When split apart (Zeus is not actually seen), anger is to the fore as chests thud and rebound, one against the other. As the duet continues, bodies are always linked, often hands on shoulders or around the other dancer’s back. Ong and Liao were terrific in dance that’s very physical truly energy sapping, and that’s before they start running on the spot in a depiction of their never-ending quest to be reunited. The end is a little drawn out, but overall, COIL is very appealing.

As in Trace of Belief (痕跡) seen at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2025 and recently in Taiwan, and other works by her, there’s a certain amount of biography in Kinetic Potentials (徑) by Hsieh Yi-chun (謝宜君), artistic director of Chun Dance (君舞蹈劇場). This time, those roots are found in her memories of training in specialist athletic programs when growing up

And that’s precisely where the piece starts, Hsieh and fellow dancer Hsieh Chia-hua (謝佳樺) sprinting repeatedly back and forth. The premise sounds dull but what one sees is the precision technique and breath training required, and the dance soon becomes more musical and textured too.

The work is another that employs an on-stage music designer and performer, this time Hans Tsai Bing-heng (蔡秉衡), whose improvisational sounds feel more a response to the dancers than vice-versa. And Tsai was not at all intrusive, which probably says much about the dance and its ability to hold the viewer’s attention.

Kinetic Potentials still felt rather like a sketch, something in development, but also something with the potential to be taken much further.

After Ignorance (無明之後), created by freelance artist Yen Chieh-hsuan (嚴婕瑄) and performed by Yeh Shu-han (葉書涵) seeks to explore the emergence of awareness within moments of chaos and suffering. Those moments are amply illustrated by Yeh reaching out and, at one point, whirling dramatically. There’s also a dramatic silent scream. Overall, the movement had a pleasing quality although, once again, the end was unnecessarily drawn out.

The opening of Hell, the seventh scene from Ten Sui (天水) by Japanese butoh choreographer, and founder-director of AGAXART, Emiko Agatsuma, features wrestlers Keito Murota from Japan and Taiwan’s own Axe Wang slugging it out. The scene, immediately brough back memories of the 1960s and Saturday at 4pm on ITV’s World of Sport. That was time for professional wrestling, and names like Jackie Pallo and Mick McManus.

Ten Sui is the latest work in Agatsuma’s Hokusai Manga Butoh Project, which takes as its starting point depictions of everyday life and people of found in Katsushika Hokusai’s Hokusai Manga. The choreographer focuses on the densely built residential areas of contemporary Sumida, Tokyo, historically prone to fire, and the culture of its firefighters, reconstructing these observations through Butoh, wrestlers and sumo.

Murota and Wang certainly generate intense physical tension and energy in what is clearly a choreographed encounter. More intriguing, however is the role played by Agatsuma, an almost elfin figure in white, who with fellow butoh dancer Tomoshi Shioya (who seems to represent a sumo umpire and carries a fan) coat the loser with white body paint. I don’t pretend to understand that or even half of what else is in the piece. ‘Hell’ is utterly inexplicable, but also something that felt very unique, very fresh, and that was loaded with emotion.

The work also again featured fabulous live music, this time from Shin-ya Ohno on gaida (Balkan bagpipes) and Takefumi Kobayashi on percussion.