About Creation
Age of Audience: 7+
Number of Performers: 10 persons
Number of tour member: 14 persons
Stage Size: 12m (W) x 10m (D) x 8m (H)
Special Made for: Available for general public or dance practitioners
Luna, by the Bulareyaung Dance Company, is a unique production based on fieldwork related to Taiwanese indigenous culture. Choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava and his fellow dancers temporarily moved to Luluna, Nantou County to learn how to survive in the mountainous forests of Southern Taiwan. While there, they also learned the area’s traditional Bunun song chants, one of the world’s unique musical treasures, which are incorporated into this performance. Luna, the company’s fifth production, was originally commissioned by the National Taichung Theater and premiered in 2018, and was also presented at Fall for Dance North in Toronto, Canada. It won the Taishin Arts Award Grand Prize in 2019.
The Bulareyaung Dance Company was founded in 2015 by Bulareyaung Pagarlava, an indigenous indigenous choreographer of Paiwan descent from Taiwan. Based in Taitung, on Taiwan’s southeast Pacific coast, the troupe’s dancers typically train by working in the mountains and practicing traditional chants by the oceanside. The group’s works are also drawn from this process, as the dancers are encouraged to delve into Taiwan’s indigenous heritage to develop a unique vocabulary for body movement. The group has performed multiple times at Taiwan’s National Theater and has won two Taishin Arts Awards to date.
Where do you hope Luna brings you, and the audience to?
A single drop of water can merge into a stream, and then form a waterfall splashing down from up high. Its sound is like the pasibutbut, an eight-part polyphony by Bunnun people from Luluna Village, located in a region of Central Taiwan standing 1,000 meters high. “Luna” begins here. As you approach in the dark, the singers’ voices grow louder. The stage is a high altitude forest, where you are surrounded by voices singing to one another from different mountain tops. Turning on your headlamp, you follow the footsteps of the dancers, soaking in the magnificence of traditional Bunun ballads. With your back straight and upright, you carry a hunter’s confidence, and then bow your head humbly to give thanks to the Mountain Spirits. We are thankful to the ancestors for teaching us to live with nature. “Luna” carries with it the Bunun’s traditional ballads, as well as their ceremonial rituals and everyday life. The dance is kept simple and is rooted in the hunter’s spirit. It responds to contemporary indigenous peoples’ hardships, asking: Without a hunting ground, are we still hunters? The same question also makes us think: Without a stage, are we still dancers? “Luna” is not just song and dance, it is a reflection and extension of traditions. We hope the audience to be moved by our singing, and in turn get to know one of the tribal peoples in Taiwan called the Bunun. We hope our work brings us to more places so we can meet different people, exchange stories and share goodness. And we will bring along the village elders’ blessings: “We hope that you share our songs with more people, using the malastapang, the exploit-praising ritual of the Bunun wherever you go.”.
by Bulareyaung Pagarlava
