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Dialogue of body and dance — by numbers
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TAO Dance Theater, a pioneering modern dance group, will present a dialogue between dancers and their bodies through three works — “6,” “7” and “8” — at SAIC Shanghai Culture Square next week.
For Tao Dance Theater and its artistic director Tao Ye, choreography is always about stretching “the boundaries of the flesh.” Almost all of Tao’s works feature abstract shapes in motion, exploring the potential of the human body as a purely visual form with no narrative or underlying emotional subtext at all.
Tao started such exploration years ago, trying to find his uniqueness among the overwhelming number of creative contemporary choreographers.
The idea of “returning to the body itself” helped him develop the number series which the Tao Dance Theater is best known for.
There are so far seven works from “2” to “8” in the series, and Tao is now working on “9.” The works are simply named after the number of dancers involved, avoiding any implying name frames to audiences when appreciating and understanding the work.
Works of “6”, “7” and “8” are all about exploration on body movements of spine. It is a process of doing subtraction in the creation from “6” to “8.” The “6” highlights the movements of both dancers and their shadows in melody; “7” is a silent piece in which audiences are expected to hear the dancers breathe; while in“8” all the eight dancers will restrict their bodies on the ground and limit all their movements within those that can be achieved by moving spines.
The dancers lying in lines are expected to visualize scenes like rolling hills and wind blowing over the mountains by such movements.
The work “8” was not well received when it was first staged during the Shanghai International Arts Festival in 2015. However, Tao hopes that this time more audiences will be open-minded to works that they might not be familiar with.
Date: May 25-26, 7:30pm
Tickets: 80-480 yuan
Tel: 6472-6000
Venue: SAIC Shanghai Culture Square
Address: 597 Fuxing Rd M.
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