
FOCUS: Taiwan
Cinedans Festival 2022
For this year’s special focus, we turn our attention to Taiwan. Curated together with Hsieh I-Hsuan, film curator and researcher, this collection of films opens up bountiful landscapes that speak of memories and traditions as well as present desires and practices of liberation.Includes Q&A.

We invite you to look at scooters as a symbol of culture and customs, practice becoming birds, join a celebratory funeral in the cinema and get entangled with the different underground cultures of the post martial law years.
The screening will be accompanied by an extract of the performance ‘Terminal Lucidity’ by Chen MingJou, which is inspired by how corals glow in different colors in the final stages of their lives due to environmental changes.
The Walker
Director:Su Hui-yu
Year completed: 2017
Country of production: Taiwan
Duration: 17:56
Originally a video installation, The Walker ingeniously deconstructs the background stories and plays of the legendary Taiwanese ‘Walker Theatre’, that represented different underground culture scenes of 1990's Taipei. Based on a multi-character narrative structure, the film re-interprets the prime-time, rebellion, physical pleasure and ethical minefield referred to in these plays.
TPE-886
Director: Ching-Ju Chang, Jia-Jing Wu, Liam Cheng, Yi-Chi Lee
Year completed: 2017
Country of production: Taiwan
Duration: 4:41
In Taiwan, scooters are easily seen as the primary form of transportation and a symbol of the local culture and customs. A group of dancers focuses on the experience of the scooter as an extension of the human body, and move with their vivid sensorial memories of speed, space and flowing scenery.
Memories of the Tenjo
Director: Jessica LIN Wan-Yu
Choreography: Dawang Yingfan Huang
Year completed: 2012
Country of production: Taiwan
Duration: 2:46
'Tenjo' means the ceiling. Through delicate movements, Dawang Yingan Huang enters a surreal dance improvisation in dialogue with You-Sheng Zhang’s musical score. Filmed at the Xining Building, at the edge of Taipei City, for the documentary TPE-Tics.
Formosan Blue Magpie
Director: Hsiao-yin Peng
Choreography: Hsiao Yin Peng
Year completed: 2021
Country of production: Taiwan
Duration: 12:02
Dancer Meng and her group practice every day to learn how the Formosan Blue Magpie looks and flies, until they become the charming figures of these beautiful birds. Through the preparations and sharing of the group, we witness the poetic destiny of being a dancer and a bird.
bulabulay mun? (Variation)
Director: Maurice LAI Yu Man
Choreography: Baru Madiljin
Year completed: 2022
Country of production: Taiwan
Duration: 12:00
Tjimur Dance Theatre reconstructs a historical battle of the indigenous people in Southern Paiwan. With the ever-changing rhythms of an ancient ballad, those who defended their homeland a hundred years ago, may be carved in history. Performed by Tjimur Dance Theatre and the local people from Mudan Township, with over 500 days of physical and psychological training.
When the party is about to end
Director: Hsiang-Yun Huang
Choreography: Ching Hsun Ling, Fan Wu, Hui Wen Yang, Shiou Fen Li, Xiang Tian Wu
Year completed: 2022
Country of production: Taiwan
Duration: 24:21
The audiences became possessed by a young Taiwanese cinephile, and were led to his last party in a cinema before his suicide in Paris. The cinema bears the weight of death, jumping between a party, a funeral, a cemetery in dreamscapes. The film mourns him and every haunted spectre in the cinema.
This is part of
Details
Production year
2022
Length
93 min.
Country
NL
Part of
Cinedans 2022
In five full days, Cinedans presents the state of the art of international dance film in partnership with dancescreen - IMZ International Music + Media Center Vienna.



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