Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Jury's Comment for the 15th Performing Arts Award Winner

Kids presents the exuberance of life in the valley of death. This work draws on and goes beyond the choreographer's personal experience facing death to meditate on the ever-present issue of mortality that haunts humanity. It demonstrates the choreographer's rational meticulousness and calmness in the form of almost delirious ritual, enabling the audience to witness the sublimation in wild and irrational scenes.

The choreographer creates abundant and abstract images on the stage with highly original body language and distilled theatre elements. The audio recording of a dialogue between him and his late mother is transformed into a wondrous soundscape, intensifying the explosive, layered and impressive performance by three excellent dancers.

Comments on the Finalist

On the minimalistic stage, the white vinyl flooring reveals an irregular rectangle, like a visual symbol of an ill-balanced life. A large piece of white cloth hangs at the left of the stage background. The choreographer, LIU Kuan-Hsiang cleverly uses this cloth to imitate an enlarged bed sheet, the curtain of an enclosed room, or an interface for lighting effect. LIU has recorded his conversations with his mother before she passed away, and edited the recording to be used as the center that the dance evolves around. The dancers, LIN Yu-Ju and JIAN Jing-Ying, have embodied their respective characters and the main imagery of the work with a captivating performance.

This work does not aim to please the audience; however, it allows one to see the exuberance of life in the darkness of death because of love. The choreographer finds a closure in the work and elevates the eternal departure of his mother. More importantly, he surpasses the personal experience of facing death and touches upon the eternal issue of fate that haunts humanity. This work demonstrates the choreographer's rational meticulousness and calmness in the form of a mad ritual, enabling the audience to witness spiritual sublimation in wild and irrational scenes. (Commentator: ZHANG Xiao-Xiong)

Artwork Introduction

This work, Kids, was inspired by choreographer LIU Kuan-Hsiang's sorrowful memory and evolved around the sound recordings LIU made with his mother, who suffered from terminal cancer and was being looked after by LIU in the hospice unit. In the performance, LIU and two other dancers, LIN Yu-Ju and CHIEN Ching-Ying, alternated between the roles of Mother, Son, Death, and a symbolic figure of death and illness. With their unique postures, rhythm, and physical interpretation, they interwove a passageway that bridged life and death. From performing the emotion and grief of an individual, the work became an interpretation that addressed our collective fear or sorrow at the time of bidding farewell to our loved ones forever. The performance progressed with what the sound recordings unfolded to the audience without any reservation, from the mother-and-son conversations, to their memories or family anecdotes, such as things like "the first time I took you to see a movie" and "the first time I beat you," to the mother's hallucinations and sleep-talking during the final stage of her illness when she was almost completely blind. Without being overemotional, the affectionate journey brought the audience back to the moments of maternal love and to relive the experience of growing up.

About the Artist

LIU Kuan-Hsiang is an independent choreographer.

2017 Commissioned by Cloud Gate Dance Foundation to create a new work, Karma.

2017-2018 Selected by Cloud Gate's Art Makers Project.

2016 Kids became the first Asian work selected by Aerowaves Spring Forward.

The years from 2011 to 2016 marked an important creative period for LIU, during which he collaborated with HORSE Dance Theatre. Together the choreographer and the dance theatre created Hero (2014), which was nominated for the Taishin Arts Award and was invited to be performed in various places. Two Duet (2015) was invited to the first International Contemporary Dance Festival of Mexico City. In 2016, Kids, a new production at HORSE Dance Theatre, was a finalist in the 15th Taishin Arts Award. In addition, he also participated in the creation of Wild Never Exist (2015) at SongYan Creative Lab, which was nominated for the 14th Taishin Arts Award and performed at the closing ceremony of the 2016 Taipei Poetry Festival. In 2013, he was invited to direct Music Unlimited IV by Taipei Chamber Singers, which was nominated for the 12th Taishin Arts Award. He had won the Second Prize in the 4th Myfone Literary Award.