"Art is the aesthetic refinement of courage and determination. This award is directed to those still active in the field with many achievements to their name over a long period of time and is intended to offer encouragement to their continued efforts."
Thus declared the National Culture and Arts Foundation in its presentation of the National Award for Arts to dancer Sheu Fang-yi in 2007. Sheu was honored with the award--widely seen as the highest that Taiwanese artists can receive--at the age of 36, making her the youngest winner since the annual event was first organized in 1997.
Sheu, from Yilan County in northeastern Taiwan, has received many other honors both at home and abroad over the course of her career. Dance Magazine, an American arts and entertainment publication, for example, placed her at the top of its "25 to Watch" list in its January 2005 edition and also featured her on the cover of that issue. In May 2005, Sheu received the Order of the Brilliant Star with Cravat--a medal usually conferred upon foreign dignitaries--from then President Chen Shui-bian in recognition of her outstanding achievements in the performing arts.
Some have said that Sheu seems to have been born to be a star, as her beauty, delicate physique and tremendous energy lend immense charm to her stage performances. Yet that is only part of the equation. There are many dancers who are blessed with talent, but fewer with the discipline to sacrifice and put in the hard work to fully develop their skills. Of them, still fewer have Sheu's ability to convey emotion and the full extent of her imagination.
As a young girl, Sheu says she was shy and lacked self-confidence. But after taking dance classes for fun in elementary school, she discovered that she was good at it, with teachers complimenting her on her ability. The movement felt natural, she says, and she found that she thoroughly enjoyed it. At 11 years old, she took part in a folk dance competition, and says that while she felt nervous beforehand, she experienced a feeling of calm confidence when she took the stage. She fell in love with dance, believing that she had discovered her true talent, and she resolved to pursue a career in the art. Her parents, on the other hand, expressed concerns about their daughter's new interest.
Undeterred in her aspiration to become a professional dancer, she entered and graduated from the Department of Dance at National Institute of the Arts, now Taipei National University of Arts (TNUA), where she studied with Ross Parkes, formerly a principal dancer for the well-known Martha Graham Dance Company in the United States. Parkes had been invited to teach modern dance by Lin Hwai-min, the department head at the time.
Even as a freshman, Sheu's ability caught Parkes' eye. "I was told that Parkes considered me the student with the most potential to become a professional dancer," she recalls. "From then on, I kept practicing day and night to try to meet his expectations of me." Sheu was frequently the first one to arrive in the studio--often at 6 a.m.--and the last one to leave late at night. It was through such strenuous effort under Parkes' instruction that she mastered the classic Graham Technique.
After her graduation in 1994, Sheu received sponsorship from the Council for Cultural Affairs and decided to go to New York to pursue her dance career. There she expended considerable effort seeking admission to the best dance schools. She also sought performance opportunities, running from one audition to the next. During this time, she had to struggle with injuries and constant loneliness. However, she was able to use the loneliness to help her concentrate on honing her technique. "When people experience extreme loneliness, they can turn to a dialogue with their own body, getting to know it better and seeking to break through its limitations," she says. "Dancing became an emotional outlet for me in that it allowed me to express myself through movement."
In 1995, after competing against hundreds of candidates, Sheu managed to secure one of the two positions available in the Martha Graham Dance Company. The company was founded in 1926 and is the oldest and most celebrated contemporary dance troupe in the United States. Graham died in 1991 after creating more than 180 pieces and becoming known as the great pioneer of American modern dance. Her works largely centered on the eternal themes of love, sex and death, and evoked visceral emotions both in dancers and audiences. Graham's trademark style was known for its jackknife turns, hinge falls, spastic pelvic contractions and trembling bodies. Today, these movements are still considered to be part of the basic vocabulary of the language of modern dance and theater.
Sheu was featured on the cover of the January 2005 issue of Dance Magazine. (Courtesy of LAFA & Artists Dance Company)
Second Coming
At Martha Graham, Sheu was named as a soloist in 1997 and was further promoted to the position of principal dancer in 1999. She was hailed as "the second coming of Martha Graham" and described as "the most gifted interpreter of Graham to appear in decades" by US dance critics.
From 1997 to 2006, Sheu also danced with other renowned New York troupes, including Elisa Monte Dance, Monte/Brown Dance and Buglisi/Forman Dance, and performed the lead role in many of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre's pieces in Taiwan from 1998 to 2003. Her major performances include the classic Martha Graham pieces Errand into the Maze, Cave of the Heart and Chronicle, as well as Cloud Gate's Moon Water and Bamboo Dream.
Sheu left the Martha Graham company in late 2006 and in May 2007 founded the LAFA & Artists dance troupe with long-time boyfriend and supporter Bulareyaung Pagarlava, who is better known by his nickname Bulang. Although Bulang remained in Taiwan for much of the time Sheu was in the United States, the couple managed to maintain a strong relationship that began when they were students at the National Institute of the Arts. Bulang is a Paiwan aborigine and has established himself as a dancer and choreographer in Taiwan, working with Cloud Gate, the nation's best-known dance troupe, first as a guest and then a resident choreographer. Bulang's piece Flesh was presented at the second Asian Young Choreographer's Workshop in 1996 and at the Hong Kong International Dance Festival in 1998.
Since forming LAFA & Artists in 2007, Sheu has also faced many administrative challenges. Rather than concentrating solely on being a dancer, she must make contacts with arts organizations, communicate with the press and sponsors, enquire about performance opportunities and evaluate invitations to perform.
Also in 2007, Sheu was invited by the Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) in New York to join its artist-in-residence program. She was the first Asian to receive the honor and took up the invitation from July to September that year. BAC was established by Mikhail Baryshnikov, one of the world's best-known dancers and choreographers, and is located in midtown New York City. It offers state-of-the-art studios and office space to international artists specializing in dance, music, theater, film, design and visual arts. Sheu invited theater director Lee Chien-chang, dancer Chiang Pau-shu, stunt expert Huang Ming-cheng and Bulang to take part in her BAC residence project.
At the end of their time at BAC, Sheu's team presented its work to dance critics and agents, who reviewed it favorably. Baryshnikov and Taiwanese director Ang Lee were among those who viewed Sheu's performances. Lee said he was stunned at the dancers' refined interpretations and the piece's innovation and emotion. Impressed, Lee said that "Sheu is an outstanding representative for Taiwan."
Sheu's group returned to Taiwan to formally stage their performance, titled 37 Arts, in Yilan, Taipei and Taichung in January this year. "After establishing a connection with the international arts center, the most exciting thing for me was to share with the Taiwanese people what we created overseas," Sheu says. "For me, applause from people at home is a lot more significant than any I get while performing elsewhere in the world."
37 Arts is named after the building complex where BAC is located. The dynamic setting and movements in the dance work chronicle the delights and hard knocks the group members experienced during their time at BAC. The piece also tells of the group's contradictory feelings of being at the center of the dance world while also experiencing the pressure to produce an outstanding performance. "To be a resident in such a world-renowned arts center was like being in paradise," Sheu says. "However, we also spent almost every waking minute practicing and experienced constant pain and frustration."
What does dance mean to Sheu? "Dancing makes me sense the value of my own existence," she says. "It's one of the few things that I'm good at and can take charge of. Plus, it serves as a medium for learning since to play a certain role, I need to study a lot. It's fascinating that I can portray someone else's life authentically without constraints, hiding my emotions, obeying social norms ... I can do something that I might not be allowed to do in real life."
Sheu is modest about her abilities, but others point out that her strong will and determination have played a large part in her success. She has come to enjoy the daily challenge of rehearsing the roles she plays and of working to more fully enter the world of her characters. This effort has led her to take on a sequence of difficult roles, such as characters that were insane or suicidal. Sheu is known for her capacity to imagine the inner world of her characters and to subtly reveal their layers of awareness, struggle, terror and triumph. She is capable of filling a stage with overwhelming tension and energy, and her dramatic power draws viewers into the world of her imagination and holds them there, riveted. "You don't want to take your eyes off her. You don't want to blink because you're afraid you might miss an important part of her performance," Cloud Gate's Lin Hwai-min once said of Sheu's dancing.
Wu Su-chun, chairwoman of TNUA's Department of Dance, considers Sheu to be an almost perfect dancer, both physically and mentally, adding that she had already begun to stand out while she was a university student. "An important factor that contributes to her success is her attitude--once she makes up her mind to do something, she does it with total concentration," Wu says. "She knows what she wants--to dance on the world stage--and which direction she should head toward to achieve it."
Sheu has become a star in the international dance world by combining physical ability and technical skill with tremendous energy and a strong imagination. (Courtesy of LAFA & Artists Dance Company)
Exercising Discipline
Sheu is well aware of the value of discipline. "I exercise high self-discipline because I want to perform my best," Sheu says. "I have no intention of competing with others, just with myself. If you really want something, you'll work toward it with all your willpower and endurance."
Wu says that Sheu has the ability to interpret different choreographic repertoires and the charisma to catch the audience's attention wherever she moves on the stage. The virtuosity of Sheu's dancing, Wu says, lies in the intensity of her energy. "Sheu is an innate performer who dances with grandeur," Wu says. "Just watching her is a pleasure and very rewarding. I knew that she would become a preeminent dancer in an international company. And she actually proved herself by becoming a star of the Martha Graham Dance Company. I'm so proud of her."
Theater director Lee Chien-chang, the producer of a documentary film about Sheu, says he is most impressed with the dancer's willpower and diligence. "She was always the one getting up the earliest and never complained about being tired," Lee recalls of their residence at BAC. "Despite physical injuries, she kept on practicing, and we knew how much she was hurting. When she took to the stage to perform, no one could tell she was suffering the pain of a foot injury or had been crying a few minutes before. She is really a role model who pushes everybody around her to be their best."
Lee says he was often touched while filming Sheu because she was so serious about what she was doing and could always put the right emotion into her dance. "Her performance not only makes you appreciate her superb technique, but also the expression of her soul," he says.
Meanwhile, Lee notes that because Bulang has known Sheu for such a long time, he is able to create pieces that showcase her abilities. "They're both ambitious and they work together really well," he says. "They'll continue to lead Taiwan's dance world for years to come."
Forging Ahead
As seen in her decision to leave Martha Graham and strike out on her own, Sheu is not afraid to face new challenges. "I consider myself courageous because I dared to withdraw from a prestigious dance company to make a new start," she says. "By doing so, I'm now left with no other option but to march ahead, regardless of the difficulties and challenges."
Sheu's challenge these days is setting up a dance troupe in Taiwan to cultivate young talent by providing students with training and performance opportunities. She says she benefited a lot from the instruction of her mentors including Ross Parkes, Lin Hwai-min and Lo Man-fei, the renowned dancer and artistic director of Cloud Gate 2 who passed away in 2006. "They helped me understand the attitude that a professional dancer should develop," she says. "Now, I want to pass these values on to the younger generation. I believe that's my mission." Sheu spreads her message by visiting schools across Taiwan, demonstrating dance techniques and sharing her personal experiences. During the school visits, she often encourages youngsters to stick to their dreams, and more importantly, take on challenges and new opportunities.
TNUA's Wu admires Sheu's commitment to visit schools despite her tight schedule. "With her amazing dance career, she certainly can convince and encourage young dancers to keep at their training and provide them with a successful role model," Wu says.
In recognition of Sheu's endeavor to promote dance education in Taiwan, late last year Citibank Taiwan led a drive to provide Sheu with a one-year sponsorship to free her of financial concerns. "Sheu's achievements have earned her the acclaim of the dance community domestically and internationally," says Wang Mei-ying, a spokeswoman at Citibank Taiwan. "We feel honored to offer her a sponsorship. In the past, few enterprises here sponsored artists individually. Hopefully, we can help promote this concept and stimulate others to follow suit. That way more artists can focus on creating and local audiences can have more chances to appreciate high quality performances."
Sheu hopes that a world-class arts center like BAC can be built in Taiwan in the near future to provide domestic performing groups with training and rehearsal facilities. However, establishing and operating such a facility will likely require corporate sponsorship, she says. Currently, a lack of funding forces many performing groups to move from one place to another to find appropriate practice venues, she notes, which hinders their development.
From the formation of LAFA & Artists to her education program to her desire to see the establishment of an international-caliber arts center opened in Taiwan, Sheu is determined to boost the visibility of the island's performing arts. "I never felt like I'd achieved anything special overseas," she says. "But when I heard everyone saying that Sheu Fang-yi is from Taiwan, that was the most poignant moment."
Write to Kelly Her at kelly@mail.gio.gov.tw