Hung Dance
Named after the chinese word "hung (翃)" in the aspiration to fly
Named after the chinese word "hung (翃)" in the aspiration to fly
Hung Dance is a contemporary dance company from Taiwan. Founded on May 5, 2017, the artistic director and choreographer Lai Hung-Chung named the company after the word “hung (翃)” in the aspiration to fly - just as its meaning suggests. The company develops in three core focuses - annual productions, international collaboration and international tours.
It also holds the Stray Birds Dance Platform annually not only to encourage young choreographers to create but further to draw them to the international resources.
By stretching Tai Chi elements, Hung-Chung integrates contemporary thinking to cultivate a new dance vocabulary and further develops a unique training system. In 2020, See You was nominated for the Taishin Arts Award and selected by the Ministry of Culture to participate in the Festival OFF d’Avignon and Taiwan Season at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022 where the sold-out performance in France gratefully received positive feedback. Another recent work, Formless Erosion is also nominated for the 21st Taishin Arts Award.
Hung Dance reaches out to the world via International collaboration and tours, which draws the creative community worldwide to Taiwan. At the founding of Hung Dance, Hung-Chung has received 13 awards internationally.
Birdy
Birdy explores the tension between personal freedom and social expectations, utilizing deconstructed Chinese opera props, and percussion and electronic music.
Formless Erosion
Erosion is slow and determined. With Formless Erosion in heart, we find calmness and peace out of sinister.
Birdy
Birdy, a work by Lai Hung-chung and performed by eight dancers, explores how personal freedom can be limited by social expectations. The piece is driven by a metaphoric narrative. Traditional Chinese opera props like Ling Zi and Spear are utilized to reflect this psychological journey. Dancers don the visually striking Ling Zi, a headpiece made of a long pheasant tail feather, symbolizing the warrior’s might and chosen by Lai to represent the individual’s desire for self-empowerment. In the dynamic movements of the Lingzi, we see a desire to escape.
Birdy
Similarly, the spear, another traditional prop, is emblematic of the cage, reinforcing the thematic exploration of confinement and liberation. Set to an eclectic mix of electronic and Chinese classical music and incorporating both contemporary dance and Tai Chi movement, Birdy deftly blends tradition and modernity, while speaking to a universal desire to achieve balance between the individual and collective.
Birdy
Creative Team
Artistic Director & Choreographer: LAI Hung-chung
Technical Director & Lighting Designer: TSAI Chao-yu
Costume Designer: Summer LIN
Prop Designer LAI Hung-chung
Formless Erosion
Formless Erosion is the latest work from choreographer LAI Hung-chung. Formless Erosion is based on the looks of the mountains and the rocks. LAI Hung-chung’s inspiration came up when traveling in remarkable Huadong Valley in 2014. From the varied rock formation and textures Lai saw, the view is amazing as well as hideous. Lai felt the difficulties and tininess of life but also the beauty and ugliness of humanity.
Formless Erosion
We can relate Formless Erosion to our lives. The chaos and the struggling state of mind are like plates colliding and jamming. It is a slow and determined process. It simply is a normal state of living. Dancers’ body languages demonstrate how the plate extrusion shape mountains and rocks, also how twisted and conflicted the life experience is. Through continuous change, deconstruction and reconstruction, we find the method to comfort and ease our souls in the tortuous path. At last, it shows our humbleness and respect toward mother nature.
Birdy, a sublime choreography.
—Youness Bousenna, La Provence
“Boundless” [of which “Birdy” is derived from] is a rich and dark exploration of the struggle and conflict between what Freud described as the id, ego and superego in his model of the psyche.
—David Mead, SeeingDance
In “Boundless”, Hung further explores the pull between the self and the super-self; the search for freedom and the limitations of life.
—Diane Baker, Taipei Times
Using the micro mise-en-scene which deepen the emotional levels including stumble, delight, reunion, and miserable made body into sculpture, also formed the “Formless Erosion”.
—HUANG Ya-li/2022 TAI HSIN ART AWARD/Nominee
Supported by the high technical choreography, “Formless Erosion” demonstrated the landscapes, positive and negative, flesh and blood, pros and cons, greenery and hibernal. It showed the representation of mountains and rocks, but praised the everlasting questions and hesitates.
—WAN Gyun-yen/2022 TAI HSIN ART AWARD/Nominee
Spring: New York and Houston (TBC)
April 6th - 11th: Brazil
April 16th - 21st: London
June: American Dance Festival, Durham, North Carolina, USA (TBC)
Adelaide Fringe Festival, Adelaide, Australia
Masdanza, Canary Islands, Spain
Théâtre de l’île, Nouvelle-Calédonie, France
Spazio Teatro No’hma Teresa Pomodoro, Milano, Italy
See You
