Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Jury’s Comments for the Performing Arts Award

Pisui Ciyo’s work stands at a cross point between anthropological research, contemporary life, and sustainability. Her work is a personal, intimate, individual search. While working on aboriginal cultures in theatre and dance is not an absolutely new trend, incorporating flamenco to explore an ancient culture is an unexpected challenge. The jury finds here an opportunity to emphasize an exemplary journey of a strong artist who goes back to her community to reach an international audience. It is true that there have been many aboriginal productions in Taiwan but the difference here is that Pisui’s individual power is authentic and charged with dilemma. The haunting melodies and the clear conflicts speak of the loss that modern society is experiencing. Loss of identity. Loss of connection to what is important. Yet, it is also a work of survival. Pisui Ciyo is a contemporary artist who pulls from her traditions while inserting and layering other traditions. The work encompasses multiple creative disciplines and theatricalities.   Committee member:TCHEN Yu-Chiou, YANG Mei-Ying, Michel Vaïs, Carolelinda Dickey, ONG Keng Sen

Performing artist Pisui Ciyo was born in an Atayal tribe but lives in Taipei. Three years ago, when the last female Atayal senior with facial tattoos had passed away, Ciyo realized that with her an Atayal generation had passed. Compared with other aboriginal tribes, the Atayal has left few traditional dances for descendents to remember by in nostalgia. And thus she was inspired to create the production Her Silent Innermost－Inllungan na Kneril.

Comments on the Finalist

Inllungan na Kneril’s unprecedented intimacy with nature and life allows it to exquisitely present to us the history of the Atayal tribe. Through exhaustive and independent field research, the performance presents the history and hardships of the Atayal as well as how the Atayal elders tirelessly teach and pass down knowledge. The audience watches a sincere and pure interaction between people within a tribe instead of a simple ceremony or an accusation against the outside world. The processing and usage of imagery in the performance are tasteful, and the songs and pictures obtained from field research are all appropriately woven into the overall structure of the performance. The foreign flamenco dance used to express confused emotions is arranged appropriately, and it also integrates the feelings and voices of the modern Atayal people, making the performance into the most natural, tactful and truthful narrative of Taiwan aboriginals. The cast fully invests themselves into the performance, making for a very touching show.   Committee member:ZOU Jhih-Mu

Artwork Introduction

Her Silent Innermost (Inllungan na Kneril) is a theater project by Pisui Ciyo. The culmination of a year of fieldwork interviews and research, it was created through her return to Msthbwan village of Ren-ai town in Nantou County, the provenance of the Squliq linguistic cluster of the Tayal tribe. It takes major themes and concrete details from the personal narratives of five Tayal grandmothers over the age of 80, whose life experiences have spanned the era of upheaval from the late Japanese colonial period to the modern capitalist age.

Confronting clashes between the past and the present, nature and civilization, the director, designers ,and performers collaborated by negotiating between body, voice, Tayal folklore and ancient songs, employing materials from nature and the vocabulary of modern theater to represent a tapestry of contemporary aboriginal life.

Latter-day historical experience and the role of women serve as the central themes of Her Silent Innermost. Though the theatrical performance of Tayal oral culture and female life history—

integrated with diverse artistic elements such newly composed music, choreography, and multimedia—this project offers audiences in tribal and urban regions alike a modern work deeply imbued with indigenous ethnic experience.

Cross-Disciplinary and Cross-Culture: the Modern Aboriginal Theatre

Returning to the Sbayen tribe of Nantou County, the birthplace of the Atayal Kaizmihung language, Ciyo spent one year learning and conducting field visits. She interviewed the only four grandmothers aged over eighty years old who were still in the Atayal tribe, and learned their life stories since the late Japanese Colonial Period. From the Colonial Era to the Modern, the tribal elderly have gone through different government rule and changes of traditional culture. How do Atayal women of different generations establish themselves, whether it be those who lived through the war, post-war Atayal females, or modern Atayal girls who are no longer familiar with their native tongue and culture?

To answer this question, Ciyo concentrates on the patient, enduring aspect of the Atayal female, incorporating dance, music, image, and the beautiful, sad love story of tribal senior Sayun, to create this modern aboriginal theatre work. Through the collision of multiple artistic elements, the body, sound, Atayal legends and traditional tunes, natural materials, and modern theatrical vocabulary all come together to reveal the state of existence of the contemporary aborigine.

Traditions and Modern Aesthetics in the Aboriginal Perspective

The precious Atayal oral history and literature Ciyo learned had nearly been lost when it became the nutrition and foundation of the play script. Incorporating the creative aesthetics and methodology of modern art, Ciyo attempted to construct an artwork and aboriginal perspective that comprises both traditions and modern aesthetics.

Having studied Spanish Flamenco music and dance in America and Spain, Ciyo found that the traditional music and dance of the aborigine are in essence similar to that of Spanish Flamenco. The former requires comprehensive understanding of literature and tribal history, as well as rich life experience to perform, while the other originated from the land and possesses powerful vitality. Thus combining traditional Atayal narrative poems with unaccompanied vocal Flamenco, this production communicates to the audience the artistic ideals of the land, ethnic experience, and the playwright. It is Ciyo’s wish that Her Silent Innermost－Inllungan na Kneril can bridge the traditional and the modern, the indigenous and the non-indigenous, and bring the audience into the cultural and spiritual world of the Atayal descendants.

About the Artist

UTUX finds its etymological roots in the Tayal conception of spirituality, which is based on the all-encompassing spirit of the universe. UTUX, Pan-Spirit’s Men for Music and Dance has been conceived from this conception to maintain the memory of UTUX’s admonitions. Its goal is to integrate the rich aboriginal oral tradition—such as that embodied in poetry, song, literature, history, and ceremony—with interdisciplinary artistic creation in theater while seeking to continue and innovate contemporary aboriginal culture.

Production Team

Consulants of Tayal Culture、The Elders of Tayal Culture:

Ciyo Yusang, (Klapay Village, Jienshih Town, Hsinchu County), Payan Lesin, (Lahau Village, Jienshih Town, Hsinchu County)

Translator of Tayal language: Libix Walis, (Msthbuan Village, Ren-ai Town, Nanto County)

Playwright and Director: Pisui Ciyo

Producer: HSIEN Lai-Kwan (Yami tribe)

Music Supervisor: CHEN Chu Hui

Actress and Assistant Director: Maital Dakiludun (Bunun Tribe)