Taipei, May 25 (CNA) The revenue from tickets sold on the Opentix platform for entertainment events in Taiwan nearly doubled last year from 2021, as COVID-19 shutdown protocols in the country eased, the National Theater and Concert Hall (NTCH) that operates the site said Thursday.
The dancers of Legend Lin Dance Theatre (無垢舞蹈劇場) are no less captivating in a performance where they don’t dance: Intimate Encounters (觸身·實境). Unfortunately, despite the performers’ undeniable magnetism, staying focused throughout the 2.5-hour performance is still a difficult task.
Intimate Encounters depicts the preparation the dancers undergo to prepare for their characters, White Bird and Sanwoo, from the acclaimed work Song of Pensive Beholding (觀). Originally premiering in 2014, the work finds lead dancers Wu Ming-jing (吳明璟) and Lee Gen-ang (李亙卬) slowly transforming “physically, mentally, outward and inward” onstage.
The performance begins with the entire troupe chanting the Heart Sutra from
Legend Lin Dance Theatre’s founder and choreographer Lin Lee-chen (林麗珍) says Intimate Encounters (觸身·實境) is not a dance performance. Then again, Lin doesn’t view any of her work as “performance.”
For Lin, the viewer is secondary.
“We aren’t performing due to the presence of an audience,” she says.
The troupe approaches every single practice with the same mindset, the same intensity: authenticity to themselves and their craft.
In 2014, Lin created Intimate Encounters as a companion piece to her renowned work Song of Pensive Beholding (觀), unmasking a process normally hidden backstage: dancers carefully painting, clothing and prepping their bodies