In terms of cultural richness, diversity, and technical skill, Taiwan's dance companies--led by the renowned Cloud Gate troupe--have reached levels worthy of acclaim. But in the heightening struggle for audiences and sponsors, only the best endowed or most determined may survive.
In an intimate Taipei theater seating about 110 people, two figures are on stage. One, a musician from New York, is playing the French horn. The other, Mia Hsieh, starts to glide into dance while emitting a piercing wail. The avant-garde performance is just the second by Hsieh and her American partner, Scott Prairie, since they registered with the Taipei City Government last year. "More and more small dance groups are emerging in Taiwan, and other art forms, such as drama and music, are mixing with dance to a greater extent than ever," the thirty-something Hsieh notes.
The richness of Taiwan's dance scene today owes much to the introduction of modern dance concepts from the West. Earlier attempts made by Taiwanese to explore the world of modern dance occurred in the late 1930s when Taiwan was still under Japanese colonial rule. Two prominent figures of the time were Lee Tsai-o and Tsai Jui-yueh, who studied ballet and creative dance (which was later known as modern dance) influenced by German expressionism in Japan. They returned to Taiwan and began to create dance programs in the late 1940s. In recognition of Tsai's pioneering status, her dance studio in Taipei, founded in 1953, was designated a historical landmark by the Taipei City Government in 1999.
Following the ROC government's relocation to Taiwan in 1949, official cultural policy stressed the promotion of folk dance from the Chinese mainland over other forms of dance. That orientation took hold even more strongly when the government organized the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement in 1967, in response to the Cultural Revolution launched a year earlier in the PRC, as a means of highlighting Taiwan's role as a stronghold of traditional Chinese culture. For decades since the late 1950s, Chinese folk dance contests, big and small, were held in cities and towns around the island, and choreographers were kept busy producing dances in the desired styles. "They had to 'create' Chinese folk dance because they had never been to the places where those dance styles originated," notes Tsai Li-hua, a professor in the dance department of the Taipei Physical Education College. "Interestingly, many of their works based solely on imagination looked quite impressive as folk dance," she adds.
While the government-backed Chinese folk dance took center stage, modern dance started to receive wide attention in the early 1970s. A milestone was the foundation of the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, the first professional dance troupe in Taiwan, by Lin Hwai-min in 1973. Before Cloud Gate's inception, modern dance had already been introduced to appreciative Taiwan audiences in the 1960s when such prestigious American troupes as those of Alvin Ailey and Paul Taylor visited the island. At about the same time, a number of Taiwanese dancers went abroad to study. One of them was Lin, who initially went to the United States to study journalism and creative writing, and then spent a year in New York City at the dance school of Martha Graham, perhaps the greatest creative force in the world of modern dance.
Cloud Gate has played a crucial role in the development of the art of dance in Taiwan, not only because of its contribution to training scores of professional dancers but also for advancing the level of theatrical techniques and even of theater administration and publicity. "Cloud Gate is a success because its leader is such a perfectionist," says Lo Man-fei, a former Cloud Gate dancer who is now the artistic director of Cloud Gate 2, a subsidiary troupe. "Lin considers every detail, including how to maintain order among Taiwan's sometimes noisy audiences during outdoor performances." Cloud Gate 2 was established in 1999 with the objective of broadening the audience for dance in Taiwan by presenting lighter, easier-to-understand works.
Today, Cloud Gate is indisputably Taiwan's best-known dance group. Most of its performances, from the early Legacy (1978) to the recent Cursive (2001), have received widespread public attention and critical acclaim. Having performed abroad numerous times, including appearances at various major dance festivals, it also enjoys a high profile internationally. "From my experience, some foreigners are more aware of Cloud Gate than they are of Taiwan," says Mia Hsieh. Cloud Gate's enormous impact on dance in Taiwan can be seen from the many prominent figures in this field who started with the troupe and are now the leaders of their own noted dance groups. "Cloud Gate should be credited with helping expose Taiwan to the world while drawing large numbers of Taiwanese closer to modern dance," Lo maintains. "Dancers and actors traditionally had a low social status in Chinese society. The positive image of Cloud Gate has done a great deal to erase that prejudice." Since 1998, Cloud Gate has further broadened its influence by establishing dance studios where interested people, mostly children, can learn the joy of dance. Fourteen such institutes are now operating on the island, offering courses attended by about 5,000 students.
Although Cloud Gate has become practically synonymous with Taiwan dance, it is by no means the only dance group Taiwan can be proud of. Several folk dance troupes remain active, including Tsai Li-hua's Taipei Folk Dance Theatre. Three local ballet companies, two based in Taipei and one in Kaohsiung, also help diversify Taiwan's dance scene. But it is modern dance that dominates the picture. Prominent groups adopting a modern dance style include Liu Feng-shueh's Neo-Classic Dance Company, which features Liu's choreography inspired mainly by Chinese and Taiwan aboriginal traditions. Established in 1976, the group has been well received at home and abroad. The doyenne of Taiwan dance circles, Liu moved to the island in 1949 from mainland China and nine years later presented her first work of modern dance.
Last year at the age of seventy-six, Liu founded her second troupe, T'ang Court Music and Dance. As the name implies, the group concentrates on works reconstructed from court music and dance of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). "I put modern ideas in my works, but I always respect traditions," says Liu, who has created about 118 dance programs since 1950. Liu is also a leading advocate in Taiwan of the integration of dance and computer technology. The first performance of works blending choreography with computer-generated images was held last year, and the second one is scheduled to take place this November.
For the Legend Lin Dance Theatre founded by Lin Li-chen in 1995, the lure of Taiwan's folk traditions have contributed to its popularity with audiences. The company was the first Taiwanese troupe to perform at France's prestigious Avignon Art Festival when Lin's 1995 work Mirrors of Life was presented there in 1998. "I don't deliberately emphasize local color. It's simply natural for me to represent in my works the things that I have felt so familiar with since childhood," Lin notes. The tendency in recent years to embrace Taiwan motifs is also evident in the work of the Lan Yang Dancers, founded in 1966 in Ilan in northeast Taiwan by an Italian missionary priest, Gian Carlo Michelini. Lan Yang, whose dancers are nearly all girls in their teens, initially performed Chinese court dances and folk dances but recently added modern styles and took on such Taiwanese subjects as the legend of Princess Kavalan , which was adapted into a dance drama in 1999.
In addition, in the past four or five years, small dance groups favoring works reflecting real-life experience have started to emerge--groups like Mia Hsieh's. "Big troupes like to convey something abstract and philosophical, but we just want to express our own feelings," she says. "Contact improvisation" has therefore become popular among young dancers. A course on improvisation is now being taught in the dance department of Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA). Citing herself, a foreign-language and literature major as an example, Hsieh also notes that more and more people with academic training in other fields have been finding their way into dance. The new groups being formed frequently blur the lines of distinction between music, drama, and dance, making them hard to categorize. "Maybe their presentations should just be called 'performances' instead of being labeled as dance or music," she remarks. Some critics have felt uncomfortable with this phenomenon, preferring a purer mode in which dancers "attend to their proper job." But Hsieh welcomes the opportunity for dancers and choreographers to learn from other media and utilize various forms of art to enhance their creative power.
As a pluralistic society, Taiwan is becoming a more favorable environment for young artists to engage in creative pursuits. Since 1996, the government's Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA) has annually organized a National Creative Dance Competition to encourage innovation, experimentation, and the development of new talent. "Younger dancers need to gain more exposure. If you don't offer them a chance to become more visible, they might get discouraged and give up, even though some of them are very talented," observes Lidia Lai, the president of the National Dance Association of the ROC, which assists the CCA in holding the contest.
The competition also includes a contest for dances created for the general public for the purpose of popularizing the art form. This year, in line with Taiwan's recent move toward Taiwanese nativism, the CCA has added a special prize for contestants who incorporate Taiwan-related themes in their works. According to Lai, the contest has become a very significant event for young dancers, and as a result the competition is becoming keener year by year: The number of contending teams has grown from thirty-five in 1996 to 116 in 2002. "I hope we can find the successors to our current leading dancers," she says. "I've been happy to see that some former contestants have already founded their own dance troupes or joined well-known dance groups."
Another reason for confidence about the future of dance on the island is the strides that have been made in upgrading the dancers' technique. "Taiwan's dancers are at the top in this respect, even on a global basis," says Tsai Li-hua, "Taiwanese dancers often find themselves very much sought after by foreign dance troupes." Much credit should go to the leading schools of dance, which have put great emphasis on training in technique. But when it comes to cultural education, most observers seem to think there is still much room for improvement. "Lack of cultural background can stunt the development of a dancer, especially when he wants to try dance creation," says Lo Man-fei, who serves on the faculty of TNUA's dance department. Lo concedes that quite a few people choose dance as their college major because they are not performing well academically.
Among the reforms recently adopted in an attempt to remedy this problem, two of Taiwan's six college-level dance departments have started seven-year continuous education programs (three years in senior high school and four in college) for graduates of junior high school. Dance students taking these programs are given specially designed courses aimed at developing their interest in the humanities at an early age.
A broader challenge for the dance world is that the arts have yet to gain a place in Taiwan society where they are fully respected and appreciated, although the situation has been improving over the years. "Dance companies usually enjoy popularity only in Taipei," notes Mia Hsieh. "Once you go outside the city, you have to worry about the box office, unless you can put on the performance for free." For that reason, Cloud Gate 2 has been staging an average of seventy performances a year since its foundation. Shows outside Taipei, especially in such remote areas as the offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu, are free. "We're trying to expand the market for Taiwan dance in general, not just for us alone," Lo Man-fei emphasizes.
Another major concern is economics, a perennial headache for most art groups worldwide. "We're doing professional-level performances with the resources of an amateur troupe. That's not easy," says Lin Li-chen. Like Lin's dance theater, the vast majority of Taiwan's dance groups are either amateur or semiprofessional, with a few exceptions like Cloud Gate that can afford full-time dancers and staff. For most dance companies, government subsidies constitute a major source of funds, but unlike their counterparts in the United States, few receive much help from corporate sponsors. "Taiwan's enterprises are still not interested in providing financial aid to artistic circles," observes Father Michelini. Given Taiwan's current environment, Cloud Gate, which is supported by some big corporate sponsors such as the Cathay Life Insurance Co. and China Times, seems luckier than others, but it still has to devote constant effort to fundraising. "Cloud Gate is such a huge organization. You wouldn't want to be Lin Hwai-min," says Lo Man-fei, referring to Lin's difficult task of seeking donors.
Since corporate sponsors are scarce, many dance enthusiasts urge the government to reconsider the way subsidies are distributed. Currently, the CCA lumps together all dance companies, large and small, when considering the allotment of subsidies. As a result, big groups like Cloud Gate inevitably receive the lion's share, causing a crowding-out effect with regard to other smaller ones. This year the CCA distributed NT$30.8 million (US$905,900) among seventeen dance groups, of which NT$9.7 million (US$285,300) went to Cloud Gate, accounting for 7 percent of the troupe's total income. Between 50 and 60 percent of the company's funds come from ticket sales. "Large groups naturally need more resources," notes Lidia Lai. "It would be preferable to deal with them separately so that nobody complains about the distribution of subsidies."
With more and more dance groups emerging, the competition for survival is destined to grow. The most important factor for success may be perseverance. "The environment may be unfavorable, but somehow you always see people with a real passion for dance," says Lo Man-fei. "They just want to dance, no matter how the environment changes." With enough such passion and perseverance, Taiwan's dance groups will be assured of continued audiences at home and abroad.