Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalist

In form, dancing bodies have been reduced into materiality in this work; the body’s flow and energy driver within time and space are processed by arranged motivations. The cave-like stage design and minimal music allow inorganic abstraction to work, concentrate, and expand through simple effects. Though it can be further refined through maturity and improvements, this work is a significant pause and examination as it abandons the habit of market reception, and independently explores the vocabulary of physical performance, especially on how the westernized body and artistic experience can reflect and reboot. (Written by CHI Hui-Ling)

Artwork Introduction

What is the “translucent” body? In Small End, LIN Wen-Chung brings to the audience the most minimalist representation of the theatrical aesthetics—by renouncing any existing dance aesthetics, foundation, stance, school, and premise, he goes back to the essence and intuitively conduct the process or state of performance and creation, challenging the viewing of “dance” and the definition of choreography. In the current dance scene, interdisciplinary performances or performances of techno art are popular trends, which are developed using the body as a node. Contrarily, Small End tries to corporealize the convergence and diffusion of “dots” in space. Lin attempts to create a piece that embodies a unique style and revolves purely around the body. Through stable and pure bodily rhythm similar to that of breathing, this piece reveals a dialogue with, and at the same time, a fight against this restless modern society.

About the Artist

Wcdance “is a small but exquisite dance company established to study the purest and the most fundamental movements, and persistently and delicately bring together a new movement style and bodily aesthetics that demonstrate contemporary characteristics.” This is LIN Wen-Chung’s original intention and self-expectation as the dance company’s artistic director.

Over the course of five years since its establishment, the dance company has published the Small series, and performed more than a hundred times in Taiwan and abroad, including being invited to the Tokyo Festival (Japan), Festival Off Avignon (France), Association of Performing Arts Presenters (New York, USA), and the transnational production by the Chicago-based dance company, Seldoms.

In addition to crafting a unique style and the characteristics of their works, Wcdance also endeavors in integrating tradition and innovation as well as the promotion of culture and art, with the objective to realize performing arts in life. In the future, the dance company plans to invite more interdisciplinary artists to co-create and spark fresh artistic creativities. It is their hope to share a sense of humor with the audience through the creative body, along with the emotions they feel about life itself and the heart-touching sentiments found in everyday life.