This essay was written in Chinese by Neo Hai Bin. Translated by Clarissa Oon. 

When I first entered the rehearsal studio, Taiwanese choreographer Chou Shu-yi and his performers had been working together for a week. 

The performers were early. Some were doing stretches, others were giving various muscles all over their body a good massage. When rehearsals began, Shu-yi requested the performers to form a circle, and to each share the unforgettable moments of their day, however big or small. The atmosphere in the studio was relaxed, and I felt as though I had unwittingly stepped into a gathering of good friends. 

What looked like carefree banter was really a way to open up conversations and stimulate exchange and understanding among the performers. It was also one of Shu-yi’s devising techniques for Dance a Dance from My Body (henceforth referred to as Dance). The work is co-commissioned and co-produced by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay and National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts Weiwuying for Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts 2024. Upon Shu-yi’s invitation, dancers from Singapore and Taiwan came together on a cross-cultural creation process along with other practitioners, including Hong Kong set and lighting designer Lee Chi-wai and Taiwan music designer Wang Yu-jun. 

The rehearsals for Dance were divided into two phases. The first phase was in Singapore, while the second phase was in Taiwan. In the first phase, all the collaborators were together for four weeks, training and rehearsing intensely for eight hours daily, five days a week. On the invitation of Esplanade, I came to observe once a week. Each time, I could feel the gradual accretion of their collective strengths. 

Shu-yi is currently artist-in-residence at Taiwan’s Weiwuying. He began dancing at the age of 10. In recent years, as an independent choreographer, he has taken part in residencies, tours and exchanges that have taken him to Europe and America, China and various parts of Asia. Amidst all this movement, he began to think about the relationship between the body and identity.

This exploration of the body drives Shu-yi, who leads his co-creators in an uncovering of the complexities and possibilities of the “Chinese body”. The title Dance a Dance from My Body provides an answer: dance flows from the body. In this introspective investigation, the objective is not to look for a point for origin (of the body, life experience, culture) or outcome (Shu-yi has not fixed any answers). Rather the objective is the process itself. 

Embracing and cherishing multiple explorations

This is a “mixed-abled” performance, according to Shu-yi. “Mixed-abled” is difficult to translate into Chinese, it has connotations of “equal access (to resources)”, “equal rights” and “inclusivity”, with performers of different backgrounds coming together on the same plane to create. In this ensemble, Cheng Chih-chung (Taiwan), Liang Chun-wen (Taiwan) and Tung Ka Wai (Singapore) are theatre practitioners; Yang Ya-chun and Yu Yen-fang from Taiwan are dancers who have worked with Shu-yi before; while Chiew Peishan, Chua Chiok Woon, Hong Guofeng and Ng Zu You from Singapore are dance practitioners with different dance backgrounds and experiences. 

Before the start of each day’s rehearsals, Shu-yi would lead the performers in warm-ups, but would not direct them. The performers could follow the prompts given by Shu-yi to conduct their own physical explorations, trying out familiar or unfamiliar movement vocabularies. Performers had the autonomy to listen to their body and decide how they want to move; this requires a high degree of self-awareness and discipline. 

In this space of openness, personal autonomy and mutual trust, all the performers had ample opportunities for self-expression and co-creation. Chih-chung, who has polio, and Ka Wai who has a few bones less than others, also had more opportunities to express themselves freely. They have their own unique physical vocabularies, including those not possessed by other performers. When they start dancing, they can offer alternative possibilities from other performers in terms of rhythm or the expression of their limbs.   

Which is to say, every time I watched them move, I did not see the “disabilities” faced by Chih-chung or Ka Wai. Rather I saw the different abilities and potential of their bodies. During an improvisation exercise led by Shu-yi, the performers asked each other, who can turn the hip joints outwards—what in ballet is known as a “turn-out” (ballet dancers are forever in pursuit of the perfect “turn-out”)? Chih-chung did it with ease, to the envy of everyone. 

This is not the first such experiment by Shu-yi. In 2021, he invited experienced theatre performer Chih-chung to co-create The Center with him. They achieved a mutual recognition and awareness of each other’s bodies as they engaged in an exploration of life. This time, the rehearsal studio has also become an inclusive, culturally equitable mini-laboratory of sorts. Here, everyone can have a new understanding of one’s “body”, “disabilities” or “abilities”. 

At every rehearsal, each performer was able to retain the distinctiveness of his or her body, and could draw on similar energies in the group work. When they danced together, they adopted a spirit of seeking common ground while reserving differences, working together cohesively. 

Empowering the creators

During Shu-yi’s rehearsals with the performers, the usual hierarchical structure had been dissolved: the rehearsal was not about the choreographer directing the performers in the execution of his choreography. In the rehearsals for Dance, every performer simultaneously wore the hat of “creator”. They needed to draw from their own life experiences, mine it and then turn it into artistic material. 

I think of Shu-yi’s Dance-Travel Project which he started in 2011. He brought his dance work 1875 Ravel and Bolero to various parts of cities across Taiwan: train stations, subway stations, art museums, department stores, etc. There was no stage, no lighting and the performances were free of charge. Aside from bringing the dancers out of the theatre, he brought the public into the dance—when the work was performed in Hong Kong and Macau, there were audience members who had come all the way from Taiwan. By 2014, this Dance-Travel Project had notched 60 performances and came to a pause. Eight years later, this project started again, and toured Taiwan’s Kaohsiung. In 2023, in the new form of Bolero in Kaohsiung—This Mountain, the dance work was performed in mountain communities in Kaohsiung using the hills and forest plains as the stage. 

Likewise, for the rehearsals of Dance a Dance from My Body, Shu-yi had empowered the performers as key creators of the work, and they had to ponder these questions at every rehearsal: Who am “I”? “Where” do I dance? Why do I “dance”? Although these were also the questions on Shu-yi’s mind, he was willing to reflect on them collectively with this group of creators, and to examine the various answers they offered. In the horizontal power relations of the rehearsal space, Shu-yi was more like a guide or a facilitator, spurring the creators to engage in self-questioning and self-inspection. 

What was most precious was how lighting designer Chi-wai and Taiwan music designer Yu-jun were involved in the creation process from the start (this is quite rare and hence precious and extraordinary). Even when the performers were doing warm-ups, Yu-jun and Chi-wai were participating, or putting on some music or sound effects for them, or setting up lighting equipment at all corners of the rehearsal studio. Yu-jun’s music and sound effects came from materials provided by the performers themselves in the creation process: for example, their voices, the songs they sang, the languages they spoke. At one rehearsal, Yu-jun worked with the performers one by one. She played the harmonica, and the performers responded using their voices. I observed all this with rapt attention—while this was a rehearsal, it was enough to constitute a thoroughly absorbing performance. 

During rehearsals Chi-wai was also very busy. He brought along his own lighting equipment, observing every move by the performers, before setting up appropriately—sometimes adding some colour to the space, lighting up a performer, or creating giant moving shadows as the performers hurtled across the space. He would adjust the lighting according to the moment, modifying the shade or tone, feeding off the performance in a spontaneous jam. 

The performers also understood how to work with the lighting: during improvisations, the performers in shadow had the option of continuing to dance in the dark, or to pause as Chi-wai lit them, standing still and feeling the light. This was the tacit understanding between the performer and the lighting designer—a moment-by-moment collaboration, which sometimes involved challenging each other, to produce different sparks. 

During the rehearsals of Dance, the lighting and music also became “performers”, dancing along with the performers. 

In my exchanges with Chi-wai, he said he was more like a “translator”. 

Shu-yi opted for horizontal power relations and collaborations in the rehearsal space, which enabled the creators to express such rich insights. I told Shu-yi, each rehearsal’s improvisation session felt like watching a finished performance—enriching and complete in itself. 

The meaning of coming home

On the last three days of rehearsals, Esplanade arranged for Shu-yi and the performers to move into the Esplanade Theatre Studio. 

Having the opportunity to rehearse and create in an actual performance venue is, to every performer, extremely rare indeed. Chi-wai could use the lighting equipment in the venue; Shu-yi could see whether the concepts and stage designs in his head made sense in a performance space; the performers could feel with their bodies the height, depth and size of the stage, and create more effectively. 

Their second last day of rehearsals was my last as an observer. Shu-yi told me he had been doing a “review” with the creators. With some deliberation, he said that before the next phase of rehearsals, he needed to organise the rich material that the performers had generated during the first phase, embarking on the work of shaping and selection. 

This “review”, does it not relate back to the purpose of Dance? All arts workers have to simultaneously create and “review”—the process of introspection is critical. 

I also felt the need to “review”. Although I had been an observer for four rehearsals, each time I felt extremely stimulated and inspired. I recalled the sheer openness and trust the performers displayed to one another and the joy that filled the rehearsal studio; I thought about the watchful yet unfailingly curious look in Shu-yi’s eyes each time he watched an improvisation session… 

I suddenly recalled all the times the performers did warm-ups alongside Shu-yi. Everyone was perspiring profusely, pushing themselves physically near breaking point… yet each time the warm-ups came to an end, Shu-yi would tell everyone: Okay, let’s all take a moment to come home. 

He would never call the warm-ups to an “end”, rather he would ask them to slowly “come home”. 

The choice of words made me think of the self-questioning and exploration undertaken by Dance. “Coming home” is consequently an analogy, a metaphor as well as an important symbol. 

Across history, the Chinese body has experienced community, separation, migration and rootedness; it has gone through the experience of clashes, rifts and integration with other cultures. 

Shu-yi does not seem to like providing answers; on the contrary he seems to like pondering the questions. He engages in exploration through the questions, yet does not rush to hold on to any “answers”; instead he encourages these questions and answers to rub against each other in a dialogue. As a result new questions emerge, and consequently new answers, expanding the consciousness of the creators and the audience alike, altering their perspectives of the world. 

After the first phase of rehearsals, the creators had a short break to decompress and take stock of the process. Shu-yi also took the time to organise and tidy up the material. Amidst the self-questioning and self-reflection of this group of creators, the “my” of the title Dance a Dance from My Body refers to these cross-border, cross-disciplinary creators who have valiantly challenged themselves. This is the sum of their stories, experiences, reflections, confusion and the questions and answers they posed to themselves. In Shu-yi’s dance space, they are no longer devoid of language. Every audience member who comes to see Dance is a participant who is also no longer devoid of language. 

During the performance, the body is constantly in a dialogue with time and space. “Coming home”, is a dialogue between the body and space. And “remembering”, is a dialogue between the body and time. “Coming home” is movement. “Remembering” is also movement. 

With movement, there is creation—this is my understanding of Chou Shu-yi. This is what I eagerly await of Dance a Dance from My Body. 

Interview with Chou Shu -yi

Choreographer Chou Shu-yi shares his impetus in dancemaking and specifically, what moved him to explore Asian Chinese identity and culture through dance.

Dance a Dance from My Body is on at Esplanade Theatre Studio from 23 – 24 Feb 2024.