Video loading...
The Tao Body Theater created by Tao Ye and Duan Ni is a unique existence.
In September this year, they staged the works "9" and "10" at the Jiangsu Grand Theatre, and the Yangtze Evening News Purple Cow News "Face to Face" column conducted an exclusive interview with Tao Ye. Tao Ye is very talkative and logical, in addition to the works named after numbers, we also talked about his daily life with Duan Ni and his family's Shiba Inu named Cai Xia.
People who pay attention to modern dance must have heard or seen the performance of Tao Body, and their digital works are amazing and difficult to describe. So far, Tao body has traveled to more than 40 countries in the world, hundreds of different art festivals, and is the first modern dance company in China to be invited to perform at the Lincoln Center Festival in the United States, the Edinburgh International Arts Festival in the United Kingdom, the Sydney Opera House in Australia and the City Theatre in Paris, France. In recent years, Tao's body has also been active in China, performing at the Jiangsu Grand Theatre for two consecutive years, and in the past September they performed "12 o'clock" performances by 12 dancers from sunrise to sunset in Beidaihe Anaya for a full 12 hours.
Tao body by Tao Ye and his wife Duan Ni, and good friend Wang Hao in 2008, they developed a set of body research based on the "circle technology system", dancers are generally dressed in black and white gray clothes, many people are still bald, the action is committed to breaking through the limits of the body, repeated movements continue to accumulate, can not see the dancer's expression, throw away the gender. Many people even mistakenly think that these movements are the dancer's freestyle, but they are not.
The staff around Tao Ye said that Tao Ye and Duan Ni are a bit like retired old cadres in their living conditions, living in the countryside of Beijing, two people and a dog, two points and one line, but spiritually it is definitely not, they have a full creative passion. In the chat, Tao Ye also said that his digital series has been conceived into "18".
After more than an hour of interviews, everyone was cleaning up, silently returning the sofa and table to their seats, and telling the photographers that you cats have been shooting at the waist for so long, it is best to get down and stretch your back.
Originally, this interview was about to be with the couple, and Duan Ni was temporarily unable to participate. The next day, the reporter met them backstage at the Jiangsu Grand Theater, and Duan Ni, like Tao Ye, was wearing a black thick cloth loose dance suit with inches of hair, which was cool.
Tao Ye and Duan Ni (right)
k = Yangtze Evening News/ Purple Cow News reporter Kong Xiaoping
t = Edification
Use every inch of the body to express life force
K: Do people still say that they "can't understand" your dance?
T: A few years ago, some people did say "I can't understand", now it should be fine. In the past 12 years, we have performed in more than 40 countries, and we have never encountered "can't understand", and their evaluation is basically "never seen".
When it comes to modern dance, I found early on that theater culture seems to have everything that can be done, and it seems that there is nothing that will surprise or amaze people. I had to go my own way, so I decided to go inside my own body, to explore the body itself.
This road is the hardest because there are no shortcuts to explore the body. It is impossible to rely on props, stages, costumes, and scripts to assist, and it is completely using every inch of the body to express vitality and "communicate". My work basically subtracts all the elements on the stage, and even some of the works do not even have music, so that the audience's perspective is all focused on the dancer's body. This is also extremely demanding for the dancer, who must be confident and strong enough.
So why do we go to so many countries to communicate? It is because body language has no barriers and no thresholds in the whole world.
In 2013, we performed at the National Centre for the Performing Arts for the first time, and some of the audience members did say: Hey, what is this pure dancing doing? This sound reached its peak around 2015. Now that it's getting less and less, a lot of the audience will follow our shows to those cities.
Tao Body Theater "9" Photography Fan Xi
K: When was your active awareness of the "body" exploration?
T: 12 years old, all of a sudden it was "opened", it was a gift (laughs). That day I was watching TV at my grandmother's house, the person in the program folded the body into a ball and stuffed it into a glass box, I imitated the action, I didn't expect to do it all at once, my grandmother reported to me to the Chongqing Dance School, the teacher found that I was born flexible, the mother and fetus came with that kind, so my body was activated as a gift.
I learned a lot of dances after that, but I always had a strong feeling that I was not a subject, but an object, I was just learning and imitating, which made me uncomfortable. Until I went to the Shanghai Venus Dance Company, I saw that their dancers did not grab the lever and press their legs, kick their legs, and lower their waists, they were all lying on the ground. I realized that the original awakening of the body can also use this most relaxed way, lazily rolling and turning, without having to press the legs and lower back to control themselves. Combined with yoga, jiu-jitsu, these body cultivation methods, I began to think about how to talk to my body.
K: "Circular movement", how to make "articles" around the body?
T: "Circular movement" is an idea or system that I have established about the body. In fact, our cultural history is related to the circle, and our architecture, opera, calligraphy, etc., and even interpersonal relations also hide the "circle" culture.
Simply put, you imagine that you have many "points" on your body, such as shoulders, chin, nose tip... Imagine a pen growing on the tip of the nose, and then the pen begins to draw a circle, which can be the word "8", or it can be a flat circle, a straight circle... Then the shoulders are also drawn round at the same time, and the lateral waist and tail vertebrae are drawn rounds... When all these circles intersect, they form flowing lines, are they not like big waves? Like ripples created by water droplets dripping on the surface of the water? It goes on and on, and your body is like dancing in eternity. It's not a shape, it becomes a process.
In the process, you will find the softness of the body, the limits of explosive power, as well as your center of gravity, weight, gravity... Is it a simple imagination that activates the "kaleidoscope" of the body? You can see, oh, you don't know your body at all, and then it becomes your teacher, and you talk to it —one action of yours is the equivalent of asking a question, and then the next action of the body responds to you. Ah, that's so interesting.
So I found the ontological language of the body, even a context, a vocabulary, a semantics. For the audience, I want them to see nature in dance, every inch of its flow is an expression of vitality; I hope that my work can express eternity on the stage, repeat it with every momentary connection, develop it, construct it, there is no beginning, there is no end, it is always in that spiritual world, evoking more people's observation of their own body, so that they can see the galaxy, see the sun and the moon, see the sea. Well, a very good imagination.
(Tao Ye's depiction is very emotional but also very real.) When we talked about this, the reporter could not stop the car and began to imagine. ）
k: Short hair and even bald head, and the color of black, white and gray, are you deliberately labeled?
T: I shave my head is influenced by Duan Ni, but immediately after shaving my head, I have the spatial perception of the back of the head, the back of the whole ear is transparent, it has a strong sense of space behind the body, and even this perception can be transmitted along the spine to the heel, and a full 360-degree spatial perception is formed around the body.
In addition, dancing is to seek freedom in the limitations of the body, it requires sensitivity, and it needs to reduce distractions. There are a lot of ground movements in our dance, and long hair will be curled around the neck, even wet, and will be stepped on by others. Black, white and gray are the basic colors of all colors, so our colors are also returning to the body.
When I first saw Duan Ni, she was like a puddle of water
K: How do you evaluate your wife and partner Duan Ni?
T: A lot of my inspiration and imagination in body creation came mostly from her. She is more talented in dancing than I am, and I once said that the best female dancer in the world is her. To this day I have not taken this sentence back.
It's true! You can't imagine that the first time I saw her dancing, I felt as if I saw a puddle of water, shapeless, a changing form. I can't describe the shock she gave me at the time, and I felt: Wow, this woman is soft and boneless at the same time very powerful, like a leather band. By the way, she had shaved her head by then. She believes that neutrality can be infinitely large.
Before founding Tao Body, Duan Ni had a flat and broad future in New York, and many friends around her did not understand when she chose to return to China, after all, I was 8 years younger than her, such a young man, or entrepreneurship, always felt that this matter was unreliable. Duan Ni has endured a lot of pressure, but fortunately, our three views are completely consistent, and the direction and goal are also completely consistent.
Since the establishment of the dance troupe, I, Duan Ni and Wang Hao have "Iron Triangle" so far. At the beginning, it was really poor, and when the poorest three people were left with 3,000 yuan, there was no rehearsal hall and no project. We tried to go out and communicate with many people, lasted for two years, and began to cooperate with Mr. Lin Zhaohua in the third year, he also provided us with a venue, slowly doing public welfare courses, and in 2011 we began to perform abroad.
Duan Ni and I are super workaholic, we make our own posters, write texts, make costumes, cut, dye and whatnot, even make music, but also manage the scene lighting, anyway, all aspects of the dance troupe, you see every detail expression on the stage, we all handle it all.
Tao Ye and Duan Ni (left)
K: Can you share your couple's daily routine?
T: Theater, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 a.m., is a basic training class for dancers, a combination training for the circular movement system. There is a two-hour break at noon, and rehearsals begin at 2:30 p.m., until about 6 p.m. This is done every day from Monday to Friday.
All three of us are modern dancers, and training, rehearsals, and administrative matters, as well as arranging performances, can be substituted for each other. It can be said that everyone has practiced a skill in the face of the dance troupe's survival.
Our theater is in the countryside an hour's drive from Beijing, and our home is next door to the theater, 2 minutes walk. Duan Ni and I have a Shiba Inu, a male dog, whose name is Cai Xia. We took Cai Xia to the theater every morning, and then Cai Xia was on the second floor by herself, staying with the administrative office people, busy for a day, and when we got off work in the evening, we would take it home with her.
Slowness is also a force
k: At present, the performance market is gradually recovering, what are you doing when you are trapped at home during the epidemic?
T: The harvest during the epidemic is to return to life, read books every day, walk the dog, cook and do housework, and the rest of the time is to get along with ourselves, be alone with our bodies, talk to Duan Ni every day, really, we have developed the habit of daily dialogue.
I have reorganized the creative concept, and the new work "10" is a life understanding that has been felt during the epidemic - in the face of disasters, the global war "epidemic", everyone can not stay out of the matter, only to overcome the difficulties together. The number 10 symbolizes perfection in Chinese culture, and I also hope to meet with everyone in dance as soon as possible with this work. This is the first time I've added hand movements to my work, with 10 dancers surrounding each other to form a circle. Dancers rotate individually and collectively. Over time, the dancers begin to spread from the spiral of the inner spine to the elbows to the tips.
Stills from Tao Body Theater's work "10" were filmed by Fan Xi
K: Many variety shows have begun to pay attention to niche art, have you received an invitation in this regard?
T: A lot. There are dancers, mentors, judges, but we don't have the time, or to be precise, we're not ready.
On the one hand, I think theater culture has the greatest cultural significance, and theater represents the character and inclusiveness of the city. On the other hand, variety shows are a kind of fast-selling product, in fact, for me, I am not in a hurry. Why not rush it? I want everyone to feel the power of slowness, slow is also a kind of power, and slow will make the root grow more inward.
I think that the loyal audience is not pushed up by traffic, it is not by heat and fast, but by slow. Just like we came to the Jiangsu Grand Theater last year to perform, and this year we were invited to come, this time and back, I am also very curious, in the same venue, we met the audience again, what changes have they had? This is something to look forward to. And the fast thing, it will sink and lose, it will burn quickly, because the next fast thing will come out again.
cultivate
K: So when your dancer watches his classmates and friends change careers and have money, how do you appease them?
T: This is indeed an era where the circle of friends can change traffic, or the fast selling phenomenon mentioned above. When the dancers of our theater have just graduated from school and come to test their bodies, everyone will say with a blessing and say, "Wow, you have entered a very challenging dance company." After a year or two, his classmates changed careers and became small local tycoons, which may indeed affect the mentality of dancers. But there are no shortcuts to dance, and we have been working in the theater for the longest of six years. Teacher Lin Huaimin said that it is more difficult to find dancers in a dance troupe than to get married, and those who stay on the stage are big treasures. We now have ten dancers, and we don't earn much, but we're not the lowest, and hopefully we can get their treatment better and better. We're also trying to do something more open to cooperation and expression.
Text | Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Kong Xiaoping
Video | Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Zhu Xinzhi
Face-to-face series works may not be reproduced or excerpted without permission
Source: Yangzi Yang Eye