“13 Tongues demonstrates beautifully the extraordinary, elemental quality of the Cloud Gate dancers, energy coursing through their butter-soft, titanium-strength bodies, limbs curling like tendrils of smoke.” – The Guardian
“13 Tongues is a sensationally big, indulgent, and visually arresting expression of cultural memory.” – The Times
Taipei’s oldest district is brought to brilliant life in 13 Tongues, Cloud Gate Artistic Director Cheng Tsung-lung’s deeply personal yet unabashedly celebratory dance love letter to Bangka.
Beginning and ending with the sound of a single bell, the realms of the spiritual and human coalesce in a visually and sonically arresting spectacle. Against a bizarre projection reminiscent of temple lights, dancers move and travel in serpentine patterns, chanting mysterious mantras as they stomp, stagger and tremble like enchanted shamans against music that ranges from Taiwanese folk songs to Taoist chants to electronica. As the lights dim, striking fluorescent patterns emerge on their costumes and flow across space, evoking the wandering spirits of Bangka.
As a child in the 1980s, Cloud Gate Artistic Director Cheng Tsung-lung helped his father sell slippers on the streets of Bangka, a vibrant district in Taipei, known for its diverse and bustling street scene that embraced the religious and the secular, the lawful and the illicit, and the rich and the poor. In particular, he was transfixed by his mother’s accounts of how the legendary 1960s street artist and storyteller known as Thirteen Tongues would effortlessly concoct tales and vividly conjure up the many inhabitants of Bangka in all their shapes and forms. From this fascination birthed the inspiration for 13 Tongues, for which Cheng transformed his childhood memories of Bangka into dance.
Part real, part dream, 13 Tongues takes you on a journey that mesmerises just like the stories told by Thirteen Tongues. As you journey through Bangka, what separates deities, spirits and humans slowly fades away.
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