Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalist

Through the singing of “mountain ranger songs”, Dancing under the Bridge by TAI Body Theatre introduced the powerful force within the laboring bodies of the indigenous people. On the one hand, the work continued choreographer Watan Tusi’s collation and promotion of the tradition ritual dances; on the other hand, it revealed the community and mutual support of the marginal indigenous laborers in the city. The work was not a direct, sensational accusation; instead, it manifested a kind of independence and freedom through physical movement, uniting the ancestral power from heaven and earth with the act of stomping the ground. The work was excellent because it successfully created a new sensibility in the tradition of Taiwanese indigenous music and dance. (Commentator: CHANG Hsiao-Hung)

Artwork Introduction

Since the 1960s, as Taiwan’s economic and production modes began to change, many indigenous people had no choice but to move from the native tribe to the city, where more job opportunities were supposedly available. However, due to low education level, most of them had to accept labor works that were highly dangerous and required little skills. Driven by the customs and habits of their traditional culture, these “urban indigenous people” mostly chose to live in the mountains or by the riverside in the metropolitan region. As of today, they have gradually developed into their respective communities, and have co-organized harvest festivals. 

In the society dominated by the Han Chinese culture, people rarely have the opportunity to know this group of indigenous people, who have already lived in the same city for three to four generations. In this production, TAI Body Theatre aims to unveil a fresh, different aspect of indigenous performance through the story of these unique indigenous communities in terms of how they have migrated from their tribes to live in the city, and eventually make the city their permanent home. 

The TAI Body Theatre has always used traditional ritual songs and dances as a choreographic foundation to train its members’ bodies, and then builds upon this foundation to develop body movement. This production continues the dance company’s iconic style of body expression to tell the story of urban indigenous people and their lives in the city. The production also includes the music and dance of traditional rituals as a means to engage non-indigenous audience, adults and children alike, with the demonstration of traditional songs and dance to foster a more direct understanding of the indigenous culture. 

About the Artist

The TAI Body Theatre—in the early days, the life of indigenous people was extremely close to nature. Their traditional songs, dances, and rituals reflect their relationship with nature, and preserve their ancestors’ bodily memory regarding nature and the earth. To indigenous people, learning traditional songs and dances means inheriting ancestral wisdom and bodily memory. However, the indigenous people in modern society are no longer like their ancestors, who led a life intricately interwoven with nature and physical labor. Moreover, the performance of modern theater also differs from traditional indigenous rituals of songs and dances. Without the training of Western dance education, members of TAI Body Theatre are trained to understand their own respective bodies through learning traditional indigenous songs and dances. While inheriting traditional rituals incorporated with dance and music, they also aim to develop the body performance informed by the characteristics of modern indigenous people.

TAI Body Theatre was established in August 2012 by Watan Tusi, the former director of the Formosa Aboriginal Song and Dance Troupe, with a fifteen-minute performance staged at National Dong Hwa University, which put the dance company in the public eye. In December of the same year, they launched their first work, The Sigh of Body, at Phonon Culture Art Gallery (now Phonon Art) in Hualien. 

The name of the dance company is derived from the Truku word “tai,” which means “to look.” Their goal is to “look” through the eyes and bodies of the dancers, to see with the window of the soul and the dancers’ breathing, and to build a connection with the audience and among themselves through the channel of sounds. It is like what the elders have often said, “you only need to look and do accordingly, and that’s it”—tai binaw (wait and see).