Presented by Dance House Vancouver with community partner Asian-Canadian Special Events Association<\/p>\n
Creatures of a feather dance together in\u00a0Birdy<\/i>, Hung Dance\u2019s call to the wild.<\/p>\n
Employing a head piece called \u201cLing Zi\u201d that incorporates pheasant tail feathers worn in traditional Chinese opera to represent warrior\u2019s power and skill,\u00a0Birdy<\/i>\u00a0offers up a magpie creation, concretizing bright bursts of freedom against the weighted cage of history.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2017 by choreographer Lai Hung-Chung, Hung Dance\u2019s choreographic vocabulary is drawn from martial arts, Peking opera, and traditional cultural symbols. Through the prism of performance, Taiwan\u2019s complex history and political status metamorphize into a thrilling new dance language.<\/p>\n
The calligraphic eloquence of four-feet long feathers moves from gentleness to violence, transforming into spears, whips, and a blade drawn sharply across the throat. Whether extending the body into space, wriggling in earnest writing, or offering a gossamer caress, the feathers function as a form of punctuation, leading and echoing movement phrases with the expressive vitality of living things.<\/p>\n
As the dancers flock together in rippling patterns of conformity and divergence, rituals of behaviour gleaned from the non-human world, find their choreographic counterparts. Group think meets the defiance of individual identity, as self-policing roots out any opposition. What emerges in the tightrope struggle is a universal cry for freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"