About Creation
Age of Audience: 7+
Number of Performers: 6 persons
Number of tour member: 12 persons
Stage Size: 13.2m (W) x 13.m (D) x 6m (H)
Special Made for: Can be adjusted to suit most spaces.
Choreographer Lin Wen-Chung has created Go Paiwan on invitation by the brother-sister duo Ljuzem Madiljin and Baru Madiljin of Tjimur Dance Theatre from the Paiwan tribe. Lin Wen-Chung uses experimental choreographic choices to propose a new perspective on traditional innovation and historical contemporaneity for the indigenous presence. The interactive piece is completed by the performers and the live audience together. After participating in this performance, the audience will feel closer to the Paiwan culture through this intimate experience.
Founded in 2006, Tjimur Dance Theatre is the first contemporary dance company dedicated to the indigenous Paiwan culture of Taiwan. Through its explorations of this living cultural heritage, Tjimur has created a unique style of dance that represents the aesthetics of contemporary Paiwan people, particularly through movement. The company’s sibling founders, artistic director Ljuzem Madiljin and choreographer Baru Madiljin, lead a team of dancers devoted to shepherding Paiwan cultural traditions, which includes a rich music and dance tradition, into a modern context. The company also actively develops performances that involve cross-cultural and international collaborations.
How did your work “Go Paiwan” come about?
We (Ljuzem Madiljin, artistic director, and Baru Madiljin, choreographer) invited choreographer Lin Wen-Chung to take part. Production was carried out in 2020. This was a first-of-a-kind project for Lin, who spent more than a year as our troupe’s resident choreographer. He lived and worked in Tjimur Village, Sandimen Township, Pingtung. Lin used his more objective, outsider’s perspective to help us develop choreography for this piece, while broadening our troupe’s performance style along the way. His contribution also helped form a new way of appreciating indigenous dance performance and has suggested new possibilities for contemporary Paiwan dance..
What do you hope that audiences will take away from “Go Paiwan”?
In this production, the performers also provide the music. Their body movements, both individually and as part of a group, are developed directly from their voices. The setting for this piece is an indigenous village. But it also attempts to break away from the stereotypical aspects of indigenous dance, and create a new vocabulary. As a program, our focus is on creating an experimental space both within and outside of Taiwan. We want everyone to see Paiwanese dances rooted in real life, free of costumes and adornment. At the same time, we wish to bring up the topics of how to distinguish and define traditional music and dance, the distance and attitudes involved in appreciating another’s culture, and the relationship between indigenous performing arts and societal/political power. As a work of song and dance, “Go Paiwan” is meant to be an approachable work of contemporary Paiwan song and dance, and a work to be realized by the performance and audience together. We sincerely hope after watching this work, you find yourself more closely connected to the Paiwan people. This connection is the main significance of our work.
