Taiwan Today

Bulareyaung Pagarlava is interpreting Taiwan’s Indigenous legacies through contemporary dance.
 

One cool afternoon in early February six dancers moved to electronic music in a decommissioned warehouse in southeastern Taiwan’s Taitung Sugar Factory Cultural and Creative Park. They paused from time to time to take guidance from Bulareyaung Pagarlava, who was leading members of Bulareyaung Dance Company (BDC) in a rehearsal for the troupe’s newest piece, “tiaen tiamen Episode 1.”
 

Bulareyaung is the choreographer and founder of BDC, which he formed eight years ago in Taitung after establishing his career both nationally and overseas. “After being away from Taitung for so long, I felt an urge to come back to my home county and find out who I really was,” he said. By integrating his Western dance training with the traditions of his Paiwan family and other Indigenous tribes around Taiwan, Bulareyaung creates performances that express this desire for self-knowledge while inducing similar introspection in dancers and audiences.
 

Like many other dancers and choreographers in Taiwan, Bulareyaung’s journey began with Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. His first brush with the dance group, founded in 1973 by Lin Hwai-min (林懷民), came when he saw one of their ­performances in Taitung at the age of 12. He resolved to claim a spot in Taiwan’s first dance program at the high school level and found himself in front of Lin three years later during the audition process. “He must have seen something in me,” Bulareyaung recalled. “I couldn’t compete with the other candidates’ ­technique, but he still gave me the opportunity to follow my passion.” With Lin’s approval, Bulareyaung began training at Tsoying Senior High School in the southern city of Kaohsiung.
 

First Steps

While Lin recognized Bulareyaung’s potential as an outstanding performer, it was iconic dancer, educator, choreographer and later artistic director of domestic ­touring company Cloud Gate 2­ Lo Man-fei (羅曼菲) who ­encouraged him to explore another aspect of the art form. “I’d never thought about being a ­choreographer. I wanted nothing more than to be onstage until my last breath,” Bulareyaung said of his time at Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA). But Lo, then director of the school’s dance department, was ­persistent. “She kept pushing me to ­consider ­choreography,” Bulareyaung said, describing the circumstances leading to his first piece that attracted attention beyond campus.
 

Depicting the hardships of Indigenous teenage prostitutes in Taiwan’s cities, “Faceless” premiered at the Asian Youth Choreographers Workshop in Taipei City in 1995. In addition to ­setting Bulareyaung on the path to becoming a world-renowned choreographer, the piece holds special significance because it prompted reflection on his identity. The budding artist decided to confront the ethnic discrimination he had grappled with throughout his life by officially taking a Paiwan name in 1995. The name, chosen in consultation with his parents, is apt for an artist crusading to bring Taiwan’s Indigenous culture to a global stage: taken together, Bulareyaung Pagarlava can be translated as “happy warrior.”
 

In 1996, Bulareyaung joined Cloud Gate as a dancer and in 1998 was awarded Taiwan’s Asian Cultural Council Scholarship, which he used to study in New York. On his return to Taiwan he joined Cloud Gate 2, and again spurred by Lo, Bulareyaung began to create works for the new group, gradually transitioning from dancer to choreographer. His choreography garnered attention in the dance community, especially the piece “Gloaming,” which was composed in tribute to Lo after her death from cancer at the age of 50 in 2006.
 

Branching Out

Following his success with Cloud Gate 2, Bulareyaung and Sheu Fang-yi (‮٣‬‭\‬‮*‬غ‮)‬y) founded LAFA & Artists Dance Company and created works like “37 Arts” in 2007. Two years later he ­choreographed for Martha Graham Dance Company, and in 2011 was again ­commissioned by the troupe. The piece, a response to the company’s 1943 work “Deaths and Entrances,” received a standing ovation from a packed house at its Lincoln Center debut. The ­recognition was gratifying, but the experience sparked something in Bulareyaung, and he began to envision having a troupe of his own back home. “Holding hands with the foreign dancers at the curtain call and seeing a foreign audience applauding, all I could think of was how much I missed my parents and my tribe,” Bulareyaung said.
 

Twenty-eight years after leaving, Bulareyaung returned home to settle in and establish BDC. That same year the company presented “La Song,” a piece based on traditional song and dance that Bulareyaung described as “giving voice to the land.” 
 

From this bold beginning, BDC continued to develop its own unique style. “Bulareyaung has made a breakthrough with the founding of his own dance company,” said Lin Ya-tin (林亞婷), associate professor at TNUA’s School of Dance. “His style presents Indigenous cultures and issues so powerfully and beautifully.” Most BDC dancers have roots in Taiwan’s Indigenous groups and many have no formal dance training. Lin found Bulareyaung’s practice of bringing out his dancers’ distinct attributes through discussion and one-on-one collaboration reminiscent of Pina Bausch, the German choreographer who valued recipro­city between choreographer and dancers. “I want dancers who think, who aren’t just passive tools for a choreographer to wield,” Bulareyaung said.
 

Indigenous Future

Although Indigenous culture and Bulareyaung’s own Paiwan identity have long been an undercurrent in his work, the founding of BDC has brought these aspects to the fore. To date Bulareyaung has choreographed 10 dances for the company, including 2017’s “Stay That Way,” which featured three guest vocalists from the Paiwan, Puyuma and Rukai tribes singing their life stories. The piece also drew attention for referencing a protest in Taipei against regulations affecting native peoples’ land rights. “I’ve become much more sensitive to Indigenous issues since moving back home, and that has definitely had an impact on me as a choreographer,” Bulareyaung said.
 

“Stay That Way” earned a prestigious Taishin Arts Award in 2018, and BDC became the first group to win the honor for two consecutive years when “Luna” won Taishin’s Annual Grand Prize in 2019. Inspired by an experience learning tribal singing practices from the elders of Luluna, a Bunun village situated deep in central Taiwan’s mountains, “Luna” revealed the group’s culture through exploration and adaptation of the long-standing traditions.
 

As BDC continues to make its mark at home and abroad, having staged ­performances in Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the United States, the troupe has never lost sight of its ambition to visit every tribe in Taiwan. The project, called “Dancing All the Way Home,” started with ­performances in Taitung and aims to tour to a total of 55 Indigenous communities by the end of 2024. “We insist on staging ­quality shows even in small or isolated ­villages,” Bulareyaung said. “It takes a lot of money, but the situation is ­improving as our mission gains more support from the public, as well as from private enterprises.”
 

The young troupe is one to keep an eye on as Bulareyaung pours his heart into showcasing Taiwan’s diverse Indigenous cultures and stories. March of this year saw the debut of “tiaen ­tiamen Episode 1,” whose name means “me and us” in the Paiwan language. Continuing BDC’s theme of celebrating its dancers’ uniqueness, the piece explores the inner worlds of individuals and how they are linked with society. Examining Indigenous topics through a personal lens won Bulareyaung a National Award for Arts in 2021 and he has no ­intention of slowing down. “With 16 officially recognized Indigenous peoples, Taiwan is a motherlode of creative inspiration,” he explained. “BDC will keep dancing and staging exceptional pieces because when we are seen, Taiwan’s rich ethnic tapestry is seen, too.”
 

Write to Oscar Chung at mhchung@mofa.gov.tw