We Island Dance Festival: Hsinchu Jump
HORSE
Date：2018.11.05- 11.18
Venue：Hsinchu City
Comments on the Finalist
How can an art festival engage the society besides producing delicate, comprehensive packages of programs to be staged in all the art venues at various time slots or advertising the fame of well-known groups or the nimbus of celebrated individuals? We Island Dance Festival: Hsinchu Jump diverts from the traditional curatorial route and adopts an alternative approach to put all types of body languages in the dance spectrum together, be it ballet, modern dance, street dance, or even track and field. The festival creates a platform where training systems of dissimilar nature and logic encounter and collide, forming a more adaptable space of sensibility. The unification of these young choreographers’ energies not only weaves a web of practices and dialogues that is decentralized and deemphasizing on singular body aesthetics, it also takes the audience back to a point before all performances and rehearsals are created, as a way to excavate the energy of dancing hidden in each individual. Their way of sharing might be simple in appearance, but it delivers a profound way of reimagining the distribution of art resource.
(Commentator: WANG Sheng-Hung)
Artwork Introduction
We Island Dance Festival: Hsinchu Jump aims to “have the inhabitants of Hsinchu jump in and make all the people on this island dance,” hoping to immerse the audience in a dancing atmosphere. The dance festival, organized and curated by HORSE, is the dance company’s ever first attempt of this kind. With its influence and continuous endeavors in the field of performing arts, the dance festival shatters the public’s stereotypical impression and perception of dance. Stepping away from mainstream curatorial approaches, the dance festival brings together twenty independent choreographers of different generations and genres to deconstruct “dance” with its diverse, new conception of workshops, talks and experimental programs. By revisiting the learning, meaning and imagination of dance, the dance festival engages the audience with new possibilities to introduce fresh awareness and experience of dance.
About the Artist
HORSE
The Chinese character, “驫” (pronounced as “biao”), refers to a herd of galloping horses. Founded by choreographers and performers including Chen Wu-Kang and Su Wei-Chia in 2004, the dance company is known and praised for its collective creation, precise physical performance and unique theatrical style. In 2008, nominated for the first time, their work, Velocity, was awarded the Performing Arts Award in the 6th Taishin Arts Award. In 2013, the dance company won the First Prize and Audience Award in Germany’s Kurt Jooss Preis with the work, 2 Men. In recent years, Chen and Su, the two key figures of the dance company, have developed their independent creative paths, seeking new forces of creativity as their contemporary dance careers have entered the fifteenth year in Taiwan. In addition to creating their own dances, HORSE also engages in multiple international collaborations, dance education programs and curatorial projects, among which are the improvisation platform Primal Chaos that combines dance and music and Back to the Moment Dancing Talking Bar, which features dialogues and discussions between creators and critics.
Production Team
Curator｜ Wu-Kang Chen, Wei-Chia Su
Participating artists/teams｜
Ming-Shen Ku, Hsiao-Tzu Tien, Yen-Fang Yu, Su-Fen Wu,
Yu-Hsien Wu, Chien-Wei Wu, Yu-Ju Lin, Fangas Nayaw,
Rex Peng, Huai-Te Huang, I-Fen Tung, Yi-Wen Cheng,
Ching-Ying Chien, Sabung Pinang, Shai Tamir,
Ren Jhen Lian Wu Jhong,
National Chu-pei Senior High School / Riverbank Dance,
Hsinchu County Cheng-Gong Junior High School
Administrative Coordinator｜Wan-Jung Wei
Project Manager｜Yu Fang
Technical Director｜ Chia-Ming Liu
Stage and visual coordinator｜Yin-Chiao Liao
Stage Manager｜ Jiou-Fang Peng
Lighting Design｜Yu-Ling Hsu
Graphic Design｜DESIGN-LEE
Film shooting and production｜Wei-Sheng Chen
Photography｜Yu-Chung Chao
Production Manager｜Ching-Tzu Chien
Marketing & Planning｜Cynthia Chiang, Chen-Shin Wang, Wei-Ping Chen
Administrative Assistant｜Ming-Hwa Yeh, Yu-Ting Fang, Jung Yang
驫舞劇場負責人/策展人 蘇威嘉
一般表演藝術節策劃常以邀演為主軸，藝術家帶著作品和觀眾見面，幾個演出場次加上座談的問題丟接，此一回合相遇濃縮在幾小時或幾十分鐘內完成。然而短短的藝術節，還能如何讓藝術進一步擴散？驫舞劇場接手策劃已有五年歷史的新竹市舞蹈藝術節時，思索著這個問題，最後決定讓「人人練舞功」的精神成為核心，貫穿成「跳島舞蹈節：新竹跳」，讓藝術節成為以舞蹈震盪共感的介面。
翻轉藝術節形式的內容策劃
稱自己「不怕死」的蘇威嘉和陳武康，在舞蹈節開始兩、三個月前接下策劃任務，跳脫團隊與作品邀請模式，在舞團成軍15年的影響力與網絡下，找來20位跨世代、跨領域的獨立編舞家相聚新竹，進行一場對藝術家與觀眾而言皆前所未有的實驗。「跳島舞蹈節」沒有完整作品製作，由21場身體工作坊、四場講座、一場6.5小時結合短講的演出接力、五位藝術家的五天日常編舞實境展演，以及兩場融混身體語言的演出所組成，既試圖納入不同觀眾族群，參與舞者陣容排開，也見其跨度：有師長級如古名伸、吳素芬，活躍的現代舞編創及舞者如田孝慈、余彥芳、吳建緯、林祐如、陳彥斌 Fangas Nayaw、黃懷德、董怡芬、鄭伊雯、簡晶瀅、Sabung Pinang、Shai Tamir、認真練舞中，還有踢踏舞者彭丞佑、街舞舞者吳郁嫺，再加上竹北高中溪畔舞團、新竹縣成功國中體育班等年輕世代。
舞蹈節中，場次最多的「身體工作坊」，由不同舞者帶領，擁有不同目標對象與程度分級，讓大眾體驗舞蹈，也培養人才。蘇威嘉當初對場次數量相當堅持，最終工作坊也幾乎場場爆滿。「舞團的經驗告訴我，只要是有東西，人就會源源不絕。」他觀察，喜歡動身體的人很多，只是缺乏管道與跨出第一步的勇氣，透過舞蹈節，在「人人練舞功」的號召下，便期望可以把此障礙瓦解。四場講座也意圖破解大眾「看不懂現代舞」的困局，四位藝術家，從三十世代編舞者的焦慮（黃懷德）、舞團與舞蹈節關係（陳武康、蘇威嘉）、性別與社會（余彥芳），與出身運動員的舞蹈歷程（陳彥斌）等視角，向觀眾展示舞蹈工作者自身，「盡可能的讓大家理解我們、展示我們平常在做什麼，然後能夠接觸到更真實的我們一點點：藝術家會失敗，舞蹈家就跟普通人一樣，面臨的事情其實跟大部分人都很像，沒有特別神聖。」
具有展演性質的內容則有三大主軸。《五天日常編舞》讓五位編舞家在五天內，於鐵道藝術村空間發想編創，觀眾則可自由來去，參與這場「實境秀」。編舞家的理想日程表雖對外公開，未知與開放仍無所不在，從閒聊、靈光一閃後的討論，隨意動作的嘗試，甚至練習後的疲累休息、用餐，讓編舞家的「日常」映入眼簾。「創作其實就是從零開始，我們希望這個『零』被看到，把我們平常生活攤開，大家就可以更了解所謂的舞蹈人在做什麼。」蘇威嘉分享，有些觀眾每天報到、等舞者開跳，也有人困惑反應「每次去都只看到舞者坐在那邊」。「我們就是想讓觀眾看到，編舞家有乾枯的時候，不可能一天八個小時處在靈光乍現、源源不絕；然後怎麼去解決、等待靈感或讓一個打結想法被解開？又怎麼去跟別人工作？」
另一方面，《串一起跳舞》實驗不同舞蹈與身體訓練的碰撞，其中一場，由運動員出身的編創陳彥斌與編舞家董怡芬，和新竹成功國中體育班學生，一同探索體育和舞蹈身體訓練的相似與互補。另一場，蘇威嘉和陳武康找來現年七十歲的恩師、已離開舞台專注培育學子的芭蕾舞者吳素芬，和正值壯年的街舞舞者吳郁嫻，探索芭蕾和街舞的混搭。另外，《身體我的名片》大膽破除成格，以六個半小時的時間，讓16組藝術家與團隊，各用15分鐘時間以舞蹈、演講、對談進行「自我介紹」。「最直覺的就是我們先介紹自己給大家認識——用什麼方式做舞蹈？正在做什麼？一路有成功、有失敗，怎麼走過來？」蘇威嘉笑說這像是樂透，「 20個舞者總會挑到其中一個喜歡的！」而過程中舞者大方分享自身故事，甚至坦承被舞團解雇的挫敗經驗，真誠而敞開，都能讓觀眾對舞蹈的距離更加靠近。
舞團策劃舞蹈節的脈絡延續與啟發
「跳島舞蹈節」是驫舞劇場初次的藝術節策劃嘗試，也標誌了台灣少數由表演藝術團隊親自統籌的舞蹈藝術節，既打破既定節目樣板，也企圖打開一般觀眾的舞蹈想像。長年編創作品，也透過各種工作坊推廣舞蹈，驫舞劇場對接觸觀眾與舞蹈教育都有第一線的經驗累積，策劃方式也與一般策展做出區隔，除去艱澀論述，回歸「開啟接觸機會」的方法。「武康提出了一個我覺得很好的念頭，叫做『傳染』，每個藝術家都該像病毒，咳兩下，看你能傳染多少，傳染出去之後，這個人可能就再會傳染給他的朋友。」蘇威嘉笑說。
「如果編舞的方法有一千種，那怎麼看舞、欣賞舞蹈的方法就有一億種。」沒有舞團作品的藝術節不為自身名氣，而是「我們覺得這個事情太好玩、太有意義。」蘇威嘉稱自己和陳武康個性很「衝」，就像驫舞劇場創團第二年就蓋了排練場，兩人常看到有感覺的目標，就不顧後果上前實現，「因為你知道後面會很美妙。」「驫」本就有眾馬奔騰之意，他們在樂趣中懷抱理想，腳步還不打算停歇。
（採訪撰文／許祐綸）
