Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalist

This entire production is rigorously carried off to perfection. Whether it is the body postures of the performers, the visual imagery of the stage, or the music, every aspect is carried off at an extremely high level. The choreographer abandons standard models of dance, and using a principle of “stripping down,” she employs only the most reduced language of movement to create extremely dense symbolic theatrical imagery. Through the emotive force of tranquility, the core issues and concerns of  existence are embodied: life and death, love and conflict. The aesthetic experience of theater is raised to the level of a ceremony of life experience, and where the spirit of Asian thought and philosophy is realized.

( Committee member/ Chen,Ya-Ping)

Artwork Introduction

The National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center is nominated for Song of Pensive Beholding performed by the Legend Lin Theater that took place at the National Theater on December 18, 2009.

NTCH promotes and showcases Taiwanese art and has worked with various troupes to produce cultural productions with Taiwanese sensibilities. They invited the highly-acclaimed Legend Lin Dance Theatre to present Lin, Lee-Chen’s Song of Pensive Beholding as its 3rd flagship production.

The spiritual dance work Song of Pensive Beholding is the final part of Lin’s trilogy of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind. This is a mythical story about the cycles and interconnectedness of life where time and space do not yet exist. Ritual theater is a characteristic element in Legend Lin Dance Theatre’s repertoire. Song presents a theatrical dance that draws from religious rites, collective memories and mythological parables, with the visual elements derived from folk crafts, ethnic costumes, and textiles.

The essence of Song lies in slow, meditative walks and Lin has simplified all the dance movements to the minimal, forming the scenery of walking on stage. The stage design conveys the concept of nothingness, befitting Lin’s religious sensibility that is evident in all her works. She stresses that only in nothingness lies the greatest possibility. The cinematic visual feast she prepares for the audience will take them to the most primitive and original space. 

Song of Pensive Beholding is the final work of Lin’s trilogy of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind, which took nearly 20 years to complete. Along with Mirrors de Vie in 1995 and Hymne aux Fleurs Qui Passent in 2000, Lin’s works have an epic quality about them, as she probes, with her unique choreographic mastery, into the never-ending inquiries about life and death, love and hate, humanity and beasts, and the relations between heaven, earth and humanity.

About the Artist

The National Theater and Concert Hall (NTCH) is located in the Bo-ai District in central Taipei. When first established, NTCH operated as an official agency. On March 1, 2004, the center was restructured as the “National CKS Cultural Center, the Executive Juridical Body,” becoming the first executive juridical body in Taiwan.

The NTCH is Taiwan’s most prestigious performance venues. Frequent performers include Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras, Yo-Yo Ma, the New York Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Nederlands Dans Theater. In the past, artists such as Marcel Marceau, Martha Graham, Isaac Stern, and Tatiana Nikolayeva have all given outstanding performances at the NTCH.