Most people spend their vacation trying to forget all about their regular job. Not choreographer Allen Yu (余能盛), who willingly gives up every moment of his summer break to do the same thing he does the rest of the year: produce ballets. Every year, Yu takes leave from his post as ballet master and choreographer at the Oper Graz in Austria to return to Taiwan and stage top-notch productions featuring largely home-grown performers by his Chamber Ballet Taipei, give masterclasses and lectures, and run a summer camp. His goal is to improve the lot of his homeland’s ballet dancers and the experience of the ballet-going public. “It is my home, and I want to make something good in my homeland,” he says.
Yu was born in 1959 in Tainan, southern Taiwan. The seeds of his interest in dance were sown when he watched his older sister’s ballet lessons when he was 7 years old. “Of course I didn’t have the chance to join in,” he says. “My parents had very open minds, but 40 years ago Taiwanese society and attitudes were very different.”
What Yu describes as his “first serious touch with dance” came when he was attending junior college at National Kaohsiung Institute of Technology (now National Kaohsiung University of Applied Science) in southern Taiwan’s largest city, where he studied chemical engineering. There, he took up folk dance as a recreational outlet, but then went on to engage in performances and even international competitions. “Actually, I wasn’t bad,” he says modestly. “But this was Taiwan and studying academic subjects was thought of as the priority.”
It was after Yu finished his compulsory military service (“I even passed my officer’s exams,” he says with a laugh. “Can you believe that?”) that he decided to try ballet. He was then 22 years old, a rather late age for attempting a stage career. Undeterred, he received private tutoring from noted teacher Li Dan (李丹) and enrolled at Taipei’s Chinese Culture University, where he studied under the equally well-known Wu Man-li (伍曼麗) and Gao Yan (高棪). He went on to star in many performances by the university’s Hwa Kang Dance Troupe, marking the start of a journey that would see him become the first male Taiwanese professional dancer in Europe and the first Taiwanese director of a European ballet company.
As much as he learned from his training in Taiwan, Yu says it was winning a scholarship to study at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in the Netherlands that “really opened my eyes and my body.” He received the award, which was funded by the Council for Cultural Affairs (now the Ministry of Culture), for winning a ballet competition. He faced a scheduling conflict, however, as he had also been selected to go to the United States with the Youth Goodwill Mission at the same time. Yu offered to give the scholarship to the dancer who had placed second, but Shen Hsueh-yung (申學庸), then director of the council’s Department of Performing Arts, talked to the Royal Conservatoire and members of the jury, and a deal was soon worked out that allowed Yu to do both. “I’m really grateful to everyone in Taiwan for making it all happen,” he says.
After finishing his studies in the Netherlands in 1984, Yu returned home. “But I wanted to dance—and in Taiwan there weren’t the opportunities,” he says. The next year, he again contacted the Royal Conservatoire’s director, who recommended him to the Royal Ballet de Wallonie in Charleroi, Belgium. He auditioned with the ballet and was accepted. It was the start of a career that would subsequently take him to three theaters in Germany: the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen as well as the Theater Osnabrück and the Landestheater Coburg, with the latter two drawing their names from their respective cities. Yu was a director and soloist in Osnabrück, while in Coburg he served as ballet master and choreographer before becoming director. He has been ballet master and choreographer in Graz since 2001.
It was in Gelsenkirchen that Yu turned to choreography. “The director used to hold young choreographer projects,” he recalls. “We got about a month to make a short piece in our free time. Then he would choose the best pieces, give lighting and costume and rehearsal time, and arrange a performance on the big stage.”
The Chamber Ballet Taipei in 2012’s Romance (Photo courtesy of Sandy Ouyang)
In German-speaking areas of Europe, ballet masters are expected to choreograph performances for musical theater and opera as well as ballet and modern dance. “At first, I was very nervous,” Yu says. “To be honest, I didn’t think I was good enough, but I guess I’m a little bit crazy. So, when the chance came along, I took it. Now I find it mostly very easy, although it can be difficult if directors want you to do things in a very modern way.” During his first turn as ballet master in Osnabrück, he found himself working on up to six or seven pieces a season. “That’s a lot,” he says. “So you see, I’m used to working fast. I’ve had a lot of practice. That’s why I can finish Swan Lake in one week,” he says, joking about staging the classic 1876 work by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893).
While Yu enjoys life in Europe, Taiwan has repeatedly drawn him home. Somewhat confusingly, there have been two companies called Chamber Ballet Taipei. He worked with the first from 1994 to 1998 as artistic director, ballet master and choreographer under co-founder Chiang Chiou-o (蔣秋娥). After Yu’s 1998 production of Tchaikovsky—None but the Lonely Heart, he was asked to take over as overall director, but in view of his European commitments, felt he could not accept. Soon afterward, the company’s productions ceased.
It was six years before Yu’s next Taiwan production, a restaging of his 2000 ballet La dame aux Camélias, which is based on Alexandre Dumas’ (1802–1870) 1848 novel about the doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier and her young lover, Armand Duval. Presented by Wu Su-fen’s (吳素芬) Taipei Ballet Company in 2003, it was a huge success, and even toured in New Zealand.
A string of domestic works followed. In 2006, a theater director from Tainan suggested that Yu set up his own company. Yu was attracted to the idea of reviving the Chamber Ballet Taipei name. “I felt that was important. There was a history there that should not be lost,” he says. “The theater directors were great. They all said they would support me; and they have all been as good as their word.” Chiang also supported the revival, but declined to become actively involved.
Flock of Swan Maidens
The new company has been the big success story of Taiwanese ballet. Under Yu’s guidance, Chamber Ballet Taipei has held an open audition in March each year. The company’s 2012 production of Swan Lake, which featured 43 local dancers who had passed through the auditions and three guest performers from Europe, was a particular hit. Dance writer Diane Baker of the English-language Taipei Times spoke for many when she reflected, “I never thought I would see an all-Taiwanese corps de ballet performing the ‘white ballet’ that is one of the hallmarks of the piece, with the flock of swan maidens moving in unison.” Each of the eight performances in Kaohsiung, Taichung, central Taiwan, Tainan and Taipei was a virtual sellout.
Yu’s other productions have proven very popular, too, which leads those in dance circles to ponder the secret of his success. “I think a lot of it comes from my work and experience in all sorts of productions, especially in Europe,” he says. “I really believe that if you want to be a professional company, you have to present a complete package, and you have to do it totally professionally. Not only the choreography, but costume, lighting, music—I always use a live orchestra … There can be no half-measures. If we don’t build up the professional level, the country, the society will never support professional theater. Of course it costs a lot of money; but you have to do it.”
To the casual observer, Yu seems to require very little time to stage such major productions in Taiwan. “People ask, ‘How can you come back and do a piece in seven or eight weeks?’ But a lot of them don’t see the preparations before that, including the time I spend here in March auditioning dancers, and talking to sponsors and theaters,” he says. In fact, he says a major local ballet can be more than a year in preparation.
Chamber Ballet Taipei performs 2012’s Swan Lake, which featured 43 local dancers and three guests from Europe. (Photo courtesy of Sandy Ouyang)
Yu is a very musical choreographer, but stresses, “I’m not a musician and while I can read a score, I don’t look at it in a musician’s way. Of course, the conductor does help with the score. If necessary, I cut and rearrange the music first. For my La dame aux Camélias, I used over 20 Verdi excerpts. And then we start to talk and maybe look at the individual music for each instrument, but while [the conductor] might advise about tempo or key or something, a lot of it comes down to my own feeling.”
Before he starts to work with the dancers, Yu studies the music in depth. Next, he introduces the score in the studio for the first time, and the performers react in typical fashion. “The dancers see me pick it up, then look at me and ask, ‘Where are your steps?’ I say, ‘Here!’” he says, motioning as if he were holding the music.
Tchaikovsky’s music holds a particular fondness for Yu, who has frequently spoken about how he finds romance and sadness in the Russian’s works. “It somehow provides for limitless imagination,” he says, adding “I also like the story of his life.” That appreciation extends so far that Yu has tackled Tchaikovsky’s story three times, most recently in 2012’s Chamber Ballet Taipei production of Romance, which focuses on the composer’s relationship with Russian patron Nadezhda von Meck (1831–1894).
Like all good storytellers, Yu has no qualms about taking a few liberties with the original tale or casting tradition aside. “I will change things if I think they need changing,” he says. In most renditions of La dame aux Camélias, for example, the character of Armand’s father receives little emphasis. In Yu’s ballet, however, he becomes an important figure representing materialism and the power of money, while Armand, the male protagonist, serves as the symbol for true love. Female protagonist Marguerite, having sold her body for her place in high society, finds herself caught between the two poles. Another unconventional touch comes in Act III, when Yu introduces characters playing cards who taunt and attract the main players, underlining their fate with a roll of the dice.
Choreographers have always tinkered with Swan Lake, and that ballet got the Yu treatment, too, in his local production in 2012. His major alterations included adding an introduction to explain how Odette changed from a princess into a swan; adding an extra princess whom the prince is being pressured to marry, which helps explain why he is so keen to go hunting; and turning the classic Act I pas de trois into a pas de quatre to highlight local male dancers Lin Po-ju (林伯儒) and Chiu Chu-en (邱主恩). He also reverted to the original happy ending, while in most productions, Odette dies by throwing herself into the lake. “But how can she drown?” he asks incredulously. “She’s a swan!”
Local themes often find their way into Yu’s productions. For a 2011 production of Giselle, an 1841 work originally choreographed by France’s Jean Coralli (1779–1854) and Jules Perrot (1810–1892), he boldly moved the first act’s setting from a central European village to a contemporary Taiwanese factory office. “Le Sacre du Printemps is very much about Taiwan and what I feel about life here, too,” he says of his 2009 production of the classic 1913 work by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971). “If you watch it, you will see so much that you recognize.” Speaking of landmarks in Taiwan’s capital, he says “I use projections to show Lungshan Temple, a night market, [Taipei] 101 at night … Taipei is very modern, very rich, but homes are like jails with bars on the windows and cages on the balconies. Our minds can be like jails too. It’s a high-tech society but people are getting colder and more closed off. When I come back, it seems very strange. Why do we do this? I’m asking, ‘Who is the sacrifice?’ All of us? But I don’t give answers; I want people to figure it out for themselves.”
Contemporary Taiwan also features in 2010’s The Door. “The bars on the windows are there again, but also the red-light district, with the girls, at Wanhua [District in Taipei]; and a humorous nod to the political door, green and blue [the colors of Taiwan’s two main political blocs], with a grey one in between, and with a soloist in each,” he says. “And of course there’s always the doorman. It’s a very lowly job, but he sees everyone every day.”
The alterations Yu made to Swan Lake for Chamber Ballet Taipei helped the classic become a major hit in Taiwan. (Photo courtesy of Sandy Ouyang)
For this year’s performances in Taiwan, Yu is remounting Le Sacre du Printemps alongside a new ballet set to Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s (1841–1904) New World Symphony. “It’s a very interesting piece of music with lots of American influences,” he says. “It will basically be pure dance; a ‘symphony ballet.’ That’s my favorite. I still have a bit of a story or theme, but again I want to leave space for people to make their own minds up about exactly what things mean.”
Looking at the general state of ballet in Taiwan, Yu says, “Although Taiwan has many other small ballet companies, none are at a fully professional level; and yes, it’s true there are issues with training and education. To improve things needs money and a lot of time—years. It will be difficult, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
On the positive side, he says, “There are many young dancers who’re passionate about dance and who wish they could dance professional classical ballet on stage. My efforts in the past seven years have been to improve the quality of their dance. Thanks also to some invited dancers from Europe, I’ve been able to give some of them the chance to do just that.”
Yu certainly doesn’t buy into the notion that ballet has less scope for development than modern dance. He says, “I know what people say about modern dance in Taiwan, and I know some theaters see it as more relevant to today’s society, but even Cloud Gate [Dance Theatre, Taiwan’s most renowned modern dance troupe] does not always sell out. There is a lot of goodwill towards classical ballet and it is still popular if it’s done well. Go to schools and you’ll find that most people love it. And it’s a great foundation for technique in other styles.”
Like Tea and Coffee
Yu speaks from the heart when he says, “Dance should not be focused on just one style. You like tea, I like coffee. You like milk in your drink, I do not. We can exist together. We should respect each other. It should not be a fight. What’s really important, for all dance, is that it’s the best.”
Turning to the issue of financing productions, he says, “The government and promoters have helped me a lot in developing ballet in Taiwan. I really appreciate their support, but dance in Taiwan occupies a very different position to that in Europe. Although the government gives financial support, it’s not sufficient for dance companies to survive, plus there are a lot of small groups in Taiwan.” Yu also wishes Taiwan had as many stable dance companies as it has fine theaters, and that professional dancers did not have to teach or work outside dance to earn a living. “I constantly draw the attention of government and my old teachers to the problem, propose ideas and suggest possible solutions,” he says.
Returning to the subject of classical ballet, Yu says, “I really hope that, one day, Taiwan will have its own top-class, full-time company.” While visiting productions have allowed audiences to see the best, Yu argues that, on the whole, they do little to help the development of ballet on the island. “And not every company that comes is top class,” he notes. Although Yu always calls on two or three guest dancers from Europe for each of his productions, he insists that they do more than just appear in performances. “They must come for the whole rehearsal and performance period so that local dancers can learn from them through masterclasses and the like while they’re here,” he says. He considers it important that aspiring ballet dancers see that there is a path to a professional career in Taiwan, something that he observes is presently only possible in the field of modern dance.
Could Chamber Ballet Taipei be that full-time company? “I think it’s possible, but it needs someone to stay here and work at it full time,” Yu says. He gives the clear impression that he would like to be the one who takes the troupe to that next level. He says, “It’s very important to develop and keep alive the classical style in Taiwan, and I think the time is coming when I have to decide what to do next. I don’t think the company can stay as it is for more than another few years. It is a difficult decision, though.”
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David Mead is a dance critic, choreographer and teacher with a particular interest in Taiwan. He writes for Ballet-Dance.com, Dancing Times and various international publications.
Copyright © 2014 by David Mead