About Creation
Age of Audience: 12+
Number of Performers: 7 persons
Number of tour member: 12 persons
Stage Size: 10m(W) x 13m(D) x 8m(H)
Special Made for: Theater performances preferred
Watan Tusi, a choreographer from the Truku ethnic group in Taiwan, and Eko Supriyanto, an Indonesian choreographer, present a cultural exchange through the two dance works, deconstructing different body languages and textures and probing contemporary diaspora and bonding. Eko Supriyanto’s “AriAri” draws on the Javanese philosophy. Originally translating as “placenta”, “AriAri” describes the profound bond between a newborn baby and its energetic twin. Together with two indigenous Taiwanese dancers,
Eko Supriyanto uses this metaphor to explore our varying understandings of taking care and protecting each other. An important element in the Javanese philosophy surrounding birth and new life, ari-ari affirms that as human beings we have an invisible spiritual connection with our fellow human beings, with our ancestors, families and with tradition.
In contemplating the experience of labour migration between different regions, Watan Tusi brings us on a sojourn through the Indonesian ‘Dangdut’ pop music. In ‘Ita’, he choreographs a mixed cast of Taiwanese and Indonesian dancers, aiming to explore the detachment of swaying bodies of various laborers under different music atmospheres to create the bonding of “us.”
About
TAI Body Theatre & EkosDance Company
Watan Tusi, Founder of TAI Body Theatre, Watan Tusi boasts of a sizable repertoire as a playwright, director, and performer in the field of modern Taiwanese aboriginal performance art. His dance creation Terrace on the Hill, a cross-culture collaboration with French percussionist Roland Auzet, produced by National Theater and Concert Hall Taiwan, won the first prize in the Pulima Art Award for the performing arts in 2018. In 2012, Watan established TAI Body Theater in Hualien county. The crew of TAI Body Theatre is composed mostly of indigenous youth from all over Taiwan. TAI in the Truku language means to look or to see. Watan spent two years on field research, understanding the relationship between the feet and the land, documenting over 60 sets of feet movements, and through each round of creative deconstruction and reconstruction, new forms of the body and dance is produced. His works touch on a variety of issues including indigenous literature, body and music, the contemporary plight of the indigenous peoples, and environmental conflicts. Eko Supriyanto, Choreographer & Artistic Director, Founder for EkosDance Company and Solo Dance Studio in Surakarta Indonesia, Eko Supriyanto is the leading Indonesian dancer and choreographer of his generation. Eko has completed his Doctoral degree in Performance Studies at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta in 2015, and his second Doctoral degree on Creation Program at ISI Surakarta 2018. Since 2011 until now, Eko’s concern for the environment and “empowering the local” has been manifested in cultural design activities for community empowerment in various regions, especially Eastern part of Indonesia; Jailolo, Tidore, Sula and Morotai (North Maluku). Belu, East Nusa Tenggara. Taliwang, West Sumbawa, and Papua.The mission of silent tourism was also appointed by Eko in the form of new dances of Cry Jailolo (2013), BALABALA (2016) and SALT (2017) which have also been performed in European countries, USA, Australia and Asia since 2013-2019. His latest work of “IBU-IBU BELU” Bodies of Border, was performed and Co-produced in TPAM (Japan), Australia and Europe (2019-2022). Eko is now a full faculty member at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts. And he is one of the curators of the Kharisma Event Nusantar at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy Republic Indonesia.
