“
Tao Body Theater's work "4" is that several people on the stage like tofu blocks turned over, but jumping out is so good-looking, Tao Ye is so young, can make up such a good work, you say that the angry people are not angry!
”
At the opening ceremony of the Choreography Team of the 2nd International Ballet & Choreography Competition of the National Centre for the Performing Arts in July 2013, Lin Huai, Chairman of the Jury and Artistic Director of Taiwan Cloud Gate Dance Collection, introduced Tao's body to every judge and audience present in a playful language.
It was the first time that the Tao Body Theatre had bonded with the National Centre for the Performing Arts, and as the opening dance of the opening ceremony of that choreography competition, four dancers with masks flashed around on the stage, showing the concept of "body". Since then, Tao has become a regular visitor to the Grand Theatre, and many works of the digital series have also been staged here and even completed their world premieres.
From April 29 to May 4, the Tao Body Theater will be on the stage of the Taihu Dance Art Center of the National Centre for the Performing Arts for the first time, and for the first time, all 11 works of the "Digital Series" will be staged in a concentrated manner, in 6 days, according to the order of creation, respectively, in the order of "Heavy 3", "2", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9", "12", "10", "11", with such a marathon performance, summarizing the past and looking forward to the future.
Tao body digital series
Tao Dance Theater
What is the digital series trying to convey?
There is no storyline, no specific theme, even the title of the work is the simplest number, and how many dancers on the stage are named after which number, all in order to pull the creation and the audience back to the original essence of the dance - the body.
Works "7"
Removing all external modifications, Tao Body Theater focuses on the body itself, unlike any set of existing modern dance techniques, Tao Ye adheres to the oriental aesthetic and philosophy, conforms to the physical and motor characteristics of Chinese, practices the development of the "circular motion system", regards the body as a natural attribute, faces the center of gravity of the body, the weight and the spatial inertia in the process of action in continuous exploration, with an almost physical perspective, abandons all expressed desires, and explores the purest natural rhythm of the body.
1
Why do you want to do the "Digital Series Full Show"?
Tao Dance Theater
The idea of the full performance plan stemmed from a proposal by the artistic director of the Paris City Theatre in 2018, and Tao Ye repeatedly pondered about it: What is the significance of focusing on the "digital series"? The recurrence of the epidemic and the absence of art made him realize the need to revitalize live art, "live art is related to everyone." Content creates new interpretations, new relationships, and new questions. The scene connects the past, present and future, and the pottery body is the channel through which the connection is initiated. ”
Connecting past thinking, present moments, and future paths, seeing each other, connecting the body and consciousness, reaching inside and outside, connecting the serious body on the stage and the relaxed body in daily life, connecting creators in different fields, reinforcing thinking and enlightening new knowledge in the response of other bodies, voices, and hearts.
02
How is this "Digital Series Full Show" different from the past?
Tao Dance Theater
In the upcoming "Digital Series Full Performance" at the Taihu Stage Art Center, Tao Ye and Duan Ni, artistic directors of Tao Body Theater, will re-perform their early works "2" on the stage, which has been 7 years since their last performance, and this time the stage will also become a "box-sealing" performance of the work by the two founding artists.
At the same time, the full performance plan extends the concept of dance from the stage itself to a broader space, and initiates diversified exchanges between theater and outdoor with the concept of "body art festival". All 6 performances are scheduled to be held at 14:30 p.m., after the performance, in addition to the theater, there is also a wealth of content for the audience, including music and video linkage scene, workshops, lectures, flash mobs, circular sports performances, inviting and guiding the audience to participate in improvisation, etc. Outdoor public art and the serious body in the theater form an open and close relationship, compatible with focus and release.
Tao body performance stills
For Tao Ye, the "Digital Series Full Performance" and the Body Art Festival are an unreserved presentation of the whole picture of the Tao Body Theater in the past fourteen years: when the viewer steps into the Taihu Dance Art Center of the National Centre for the Performing Arts, follows the clues of the installation exhibition to guide them into the theater, after watching the performance, they are pulled outdoors by the outdoor stage and dialogue lectures, and the whole experience process is like the "circle movement system" he founded, which belongs to a circular cycle. This circle also forms the connecting channel between the pottery body and each person.
TAIHU
Introduction to the "Digital Series Full Show" program
(Swipe down to see program details)
April 29
"Heavy 3"
Premiered on September 5, 2009 in Beijing, China
Tao Body Theater created the first digital series of works, and the resulting belief is that "the more restrictive, the more likely it is". The three dances explore the infinite generalization of body movements from simple to complex with the extreme rhythm of movement, pushing and pulling and throwing objects. The meaning of "heavy" in the work is two-word, that is, weight and repetition. Weight refers to the center of gravity, gravity and control of body movement, and repetition means the circulation, consumption and pursuit within the body.
《2》
Premiered on 13 May 2011 at the M.A.D.E Festival in Sweden
Tao Ye and Duan Ni created the first dance double dance work, they believe that the double dance is the most well-known dance interactive relationship, and thus become the most challenging choreography form in the creation. In a 50-minute extreme physical dialogue, the duo reproduce a temporal tension beyond the scene in pure energy consumption and spiritual conservation, and combine the electronic noise experimental music with the musician Xiaohe for the first time, presenting an extraordinary experience of physical and mental meditation and spiritual arrival.
April 30
《4》
Premiered on 17 July 2012 at the Gdansk Festival in Poland
The four dancers on the stage circle between the common external space and their independent inner space in a diamond-shaped square, creating a visual picture that is constantly changing and flowing in order. The dancers do not contact each other, through the rhythm of the circle to carry out a neat and orderly center of gravity conversion movement, the tacit cooperation between the inside and outside reflects the consistency like full of magnetic force and condensed into a powerful aura, constantly deducing the ultimate process of energy conservation and extinction essence.
《5》
Premiered on 3 July 2013 at the Amsterdam July Dance Festival in the Netherlands
The five dancers are connected to each other from beginning to end, never separated but integrated, with continuous support movements for endless deformation and travel. The entanglement and stacking of the whole body are like active buildings, infinitely unfolding different possibilities for spatial construction and limitation. According to the works, the musician Kokawa integrates the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth into the creation, from cosmic sound to mantra, from Baroque to neoclassical, like a visual symphony, making a perfect contrast between change and invariance.
May 1
《6》
Premiered on 1 February 2014 in Meuau, Sweden
The work takes the spine as the return of the "movement" of the human prime force, expands the multiple layers of space by twisting and folding the spine, and conveys the end of each process that extends from the inside to the outside through the movement of the spine, and condenses the body into a torso movement in the deletion of the conventional body vocabulary of hand dancing and footwork, and the overall meaning of the body becoming a torso movement from beginning to end. The lighting design of the work was created by Swedish visual artist Ellen Ruge, and the flow of interlaced light runs through the entire scene, triggering a dynamic fantasy between light and shadow.
《7》
Premiered on 19 September 2014 at the Adelaide Australia-Asia Arts Festival
After years of grinding on the "sound shape" training, Tao Ye focused on the attitude of physical practice, boldly eliminated the so-called "soundtrack" of the dance in the process of thinking about duality, and created the sound shape and tuna, inside and outside and virtual reality of the movement through the real live vocal choreography of the body movement.
May 2
《8》
Premiered on October 23, 2015 at the Shanghai International Arts Festival
All dancers will continue side-by-side in a consistent manner through breathing, showing the accumulation of consumption and process. Formally, the dancer changes from standing to lying on his back, and the limbs are further restricted to the ground, yet under this restriction, the dancer's physical abilities are also tapped and released. From the audience's positive perspective, this dance cuts away the full view of the dancer's limbs from head to toe, leaving only the focus of the audience's physical torso.
《9》
Premiered on November 3, 2017 at the National Centre for the Performing Arts Dance Festival
With a Sanskrit sound, the nine dancers poured out, and in an instant, life sailed to the flow. "9" is a choreographer to cultivate the question of life, where does life come from? Where to go from here? Looking up at the starry sky, all beings are suffering, looking down at the soles of their feet, the dust of life. During the dance, every inch of the dancer's body is drawn in circles. A movement out, it will definitely come back, every turn is a question, the next second of the rotation is a response, the dancer with the body of a hundred turns a thousand times to find, what is the source? Or the original?
May 3
《12》
It premiered on October 11, 2019 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan
The cooperation between the Tao Body Theatre and the Cloud Gate Dance Collection in 2019 is inspired by the clouds seen on the way to Tao Ye's Swedish tour, and the clouds that come and go have an ethereal and vigorous beauty in the passage of time, and each moment presents thousands of postures, such as the germination of all things, such as the eternity of life. Tao Ye looks forward to giving us some touches and common thoughts at the scene it presents, and retaining a piece of inner beauty in the contrast between time change and immutable.
《10》
Premiered on August 22, 2020 at the Guangzhou Opera House
Choreography cultivates the understanding of life that has been felt during the epidemic in 2020, which is a dance of prayer, praying that the epidemic will dissipate as soon as possible with this work, and everyone will enter the theater again and meet with dance. Through the circular dance of the dancers, the work outlines a primitive bonfire fable of mankind, such as the emotional commonality of the strong connection between generations of people, looking forward to the cycle of life, endless life.
May 4
《11》
Premiered on August 24, 2021, the National Centre for the Performing Arts
In this work, the dancers are set with a restrictive and open rule: the lower body is limited, and the upper body is improvised. Each dancer goes back and forth in their own independent path, their hips moving, the direction of their knees, and each step of their feet are all established, while the shoulders and elbows, ankles, trunk spines and head of the upper body are freely stretched and danced randomly. In the repetition of change and invariance, the 11 dancers open their bodies, like a kaleidoscope, and unfold the path of great unity in their own differences.
April 29-May 4
National Centre for the Performing Arts taihu Stage Art Center
Together with the Tao Body Theater, enjoy the "Digital Series"
Feel the beautiful spring day, feel the beauty and power of the rhythm of the body!