2016/12/03
038, The Song and Ocean Beyond The Body
Hsiang-Jun Fan (critic for Performing Arts Reviews), Performing Arts Reviews
And so these people can’t keep up with modernity and are unable to connect with history. They are trapped in a waterless swimming pool filled with the smell of disinfectant, trapped in the education system of an advanced country, trapped in the train that continues to send away the youths of their tribes and bring in tourists, trapped in the seeming progression of modernity which in truth, is aimless. They can only look at the mountain and ocean and moon projected on the screen, listening to the folk song from their childhood that the elders in the tribe used to sing while working floats in the air.
038, The Song and Ocean Beyond The Body
Hsiang-Jun Fan (critic for Performing Arts Reviews), Performing Arts Reviews
And so these people can’t keep up with modernity and are unable to connect with history. They are trapped in a waterless swimming pool filled with the smell of disinfectant, trapped in the education system of an advanced country, trapped in the train that continues to send away the youths of their tribes and bring in tourists, trapped in the seeming progression of modernity which in truth, is aimless. They can only look at the mountain and ocean and moon projected on the screen, listening to the folk song from their childhood that the elders in the tribe used to sing while working floats in the air.
2016/12/19
038, The Bottom of Sorrow and It's Perceptual Form
Hui-Ling Ji (2016 on-site critic), Performing Arts Reviews
038 is about hometown, but what it presents is repressed sorrow. In an ocean of cerulean blue, emotions are solidified into rocks; almost unmovable. It is a hardened state that couldn’t be articulated (or lack vocabulary) however they are stirred and rolled. The audience could only imagine it's the accusation of the choreographer. It is stifling like death; time and space cannot escape from it. There’s no other way except silence. Except immerse oneself in the bottom of sorrow, gazes at it and dances with it.
038, The Bottom of Sorrow and It's Perceptual Form
Hui-Ling Ji (2016 on-site critic), Performing Arts Reviews
038 is about hometown, but what it presents is repressed sorrow. In an ocean of cerulean blue, emotions are solidified into rocks; almost unmovable. It is a hardened state that couldn’t be articulated (or lack vocabulary) however they are stirred and rolled. The audience could only imagine it's the accusation of the choreographer. It is stifling like death; time and space cannot escape from it. There’s no other way except silence. Except immerse oneself in the bottom of sorrow, gazes at it and dances with it.
2017/01/23
The Code that Unlocks Memory – Yiya Nalu Bay, 038
Zhong-Shan Shih, Performing Arts Reviews
Through the pushing, releasing, shifting, running and hugging in the dance, we see identity confusions and splintered memories. Time and again, the choreographer attempts to wake up those who are deep asleep in memories and remind them to remember their initial images. And yet, what exactly is that image? How shall we understand its profound meaning?
The Code that Unlocks Memory – Yiya Nalu Bay, 038
Zhong-Shan Shih, Performing Arts Reviews
Through the pushing, releasing, shifting, running and hugging in the dance, we see identity confusions and splintered memories. Time and again, the choreographer attempts to wake up those who are deep asleep in memories and remind them to remember their initial images. And yet, what exactly is that image? How shall we understand its profound meaning?
2016/12/31
038, Gaps and Convulsions
Hong-Wen Lu, Performing Arts Reviews
The relationship between convulsions and the cause of its formation is not merely a single line cause and effect. It could more be a revolving cause and effect that's intertwined. When the dancers pace back and forth in the drained, waterless swimming pool, the bottom of the pool, unlaid with stage mat, reverberates. From outer to inner, it forms another route that passes through the body and inscribes into our memories. And these memories would eventually be presented through convulsions.
038, Gaps and Convulsions
Hong-Wen Lu, Performing Arts Reviews
The relationship between convulsions and the cause of its formation is not merely a single line cause and effect. It could more be a revolving cause and effect that's intertwined. When the dancers pace back and forth in the drained, waterless swimming pool, the bottom of the pool, unlaid with stage mat, reverberates. From outer to inner, it forms another route that passes through the body and inscribes into our memories. And these memories would eventually be presented through convulsions.
2016/12/21
038, The Drifting Life of an Aborigine
Sifo Lakaw (Wen-Kuan Chung), Performing Arts Reviews
The beautiful landscape of Hualien is our reverie and longing for our hometown, and the debris of natural disasters is the historical process of the disintegration of tribal culture. Confronted by the predicament of vanishing culture, we are simultaneously troubled and stumped, yet we never stop looking forward to the restoration of our culture. While anticipating, we see 038 opens with familiar and heartwarming sentences in the train carriage written in Pangcah and ends with working folk song sung by the Pangcah elders. The echoing sentiments of the opening and the ending is only the grief of cultural dispossession that Kuo-Shin Chuang presents once and again.
038, The Drifting Life of an Aborigine
Sifo Lakaw (Wen-Kuan Chung), Performing Arts Reviews
The beautiful landscape of Hualien is our reverie and longing for our hometown, and the debris of natural disasters is the historical process of the disintegration of tribal culture. Confronted by the predicament of vanishing culture, we are simultaneously troubled and stumped, yet we never stop looking forward to the restoration of our culture. While anticipating, we see 038 opens with familiar and heartwarming sentences in the train carriage written in Pangcah and ends with working folk song sung by the Pangcah elders. The echoing sentiments of the opening and the ending is only the grief of cultural dispossession that Kuo-Shin Chuang presents once and again.
2016/12/11
Back to the Embrace of the Ocean, 038
Ji-Mi Chang
Watching the dancers performing in Shui-Yuan Theater, a venue that is surrounded by concrete jungle, watching them as they danced against the background of the ocean from their hometown projected on the wall, I know it isn’t the intention of the dance, but. But as a city dweller, I feel an irony of guilt and emotion: I am sorry. Because of us, your lands are no longer green, the ocean is no longer blue. There’s also a surge of gratitude: thank you for being as generous as the ocean; sharing everything with us.
Back to the Embrace of the Ocean, 038
Ji-Mi Chang
Watching the dancers performing in Shui-Yuan Theater, a venue that is surrounded by concrete jungle, watching them as they danced against the background of the ocean from their hometown projected on the wall, I know it isn’t the intention of the dance, but. But as a city dweller, I feel an irony of guilt and emotion: I am sorry. Because of us, your lands are no longer green, the ocean is no longer blue. There’s also a surge of gratitude: thank you for being as generous as the ocean; sharing everything with us.
2014/02/26
The Priest under the Sunset, The Internal Prose That's Compelled to be Written
Yu-Shih Lin, Performing Arts Reviews
In a radio interview with culture intellectual, Jin-Fa Wu, to talk about this production, Kuo-Shin Chuang, the choreographer, mentioned the “rarue” (pronounced as rarɯi ) of a Pangcah priest. In the Pangcah vocabulary, the word means the complicated emotions of a deep sense of sorrow when one is compelled to obey. The status of a priest is not inherited, nor is it for one to volunteer. One must be chosen by the Gods to serve for the fortunes of his tribe. The priest cannot resign from his position; he must stay with his people until the end of his life. Nowadays, as traditional faith crumbles, the tribes have also fallen apart. The aged priests are filled with “rarue”, doubting the necessity of their existence; more complicated than ever.
The Priest under the Sunset, The Internal Prose That's Compelled to be Written
Yu-Shih Lin, Performing Arts Reviews
In a radio interview with culture intellectual, Jin-Fa Wu, to talk about this production, Kuo-Shin Chuang, the choreographer, mentioned the “rarue” (pronounced as rarɯi ) of a Pangcah priest. In the Pangcah vocabulary, the word means the complicated emotions of a deep sense of sorrow when one is compelled to obey. The status of a priest is not inherited, nor is it for one to volunteer. One must be chosen by the Gods to serve for the fortunes of his tribe. The priest cannot resign from his position; he must stay with his people until the end of his life. Nowadays, as traditional faith crumbles, the tribes have also fallen apart. The aged priests are filled with “rarue”, doubting the necessity of their existence; more complicated than ever.