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
Swing the feathers from the Chinese tradition, blooming the energy that breaks through limitations and identities.
Formless Erosion
Erosion is slow and determined. With Formless Erosion in heart, we find calmness and peace out of sinister.
Birdy
In Birdy, Lai probes freedom and oppression’s complex interplay, intertwining societal dynamics and Taiwan’s communities. He examines how seemingly minor occurrences like emotions and history’s echoes subtly breed fear, strife, or harmony in society. Employing a cage and dreamer metaphor, Lai bridges personal sentiments, relationship dynamics, and the broader societal context. While deconstructing the traditional flower spear, he crafts a cage-like “Rattan pole,” symbolizing life’s constraints and challenges. By portraying the image of a cage and a dreamer, Lai skillfully stretches the boundaries between an individual’s innermost feelings, the dynamics of relationships, and the broader context of individuals within society, culture, or the world we inhabit.
Birdy
Incorporating “Ling Zi” pheasant feathers, emblematic of warrior might in traditional Chinese opera, Lai reshapes their significance. In his work Birdy, symbols of weapons that change history—pens and knives—empower wielders to reshape consciousness. Lai contends genuine freedom stems from heightened awareness, illustrated by the “Ling Zi” with its imagery resembling the spine’s extension, echoing power’s reach; this visual also evokes images of a bird, a cage, and dreams, subtly suggesting life’s delicate balance. These elements coalesce in a performance of profound exploration, revealing freedom, potency, and tenacity’s intricate tapestry.
Birdy
Creative Team
Artistic Director & Choreographer | LAI Hung-Chung
Performers | CHENG I-Han, HUANG Yu-Hsuan, YANG Ya-Ching, LEE Kuan-Ling, LU Ying-Chieh, KUO Chueh-Kai, WU Shih-Jie, HO Tzu-Wen
Composer | HSU Chia-Wei
Lighting Designer|TSAI Chao-Yu
Costume Designer | Summer LIN
Technical Coordinator | WU Yi-Ju
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.
“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