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Relationships

 


“Relationships” is a cross-field effort with elements including dance, drama, music, images, real-time projection, and stage design. It has a great influence on performance arts in south Taiwan, as the innovative ideas have inspired breakthroughs and possibilities in performance arts in south Taiwan and give the audience in south Taiwan a deeper insight into performance arts.

According to Dominique Yen: The drama students said this piece is more like a drama, while the dance students said there are plenty of movements, skills with imagery, and interesting designs. Yen used large stage properties that are commonly seen in theatres such as beds, sofas, bookcases, desks, chairs, etc. and integrated them with the bodies, to create spatial awareness and the states the creator intended, while discovering various possibilities and showing various imagination with these objects. The creator designed some dialogues for the dancers but decided not to let them speak but to express through their bodies in dancing. In dramas, dialogues help the audience to easily understand what the stories are about. In dances, the audience may not completely understand what messages the physical movements are delivering. The reason why Yen’s work can move the audience, besides integrating daily life elements into the design, is that she integrated body languages in the design of movements to create various states, which enriched the dancers’ and actors’ performances with genuineness and exquisiteness.

During the rehearsals, the creator kept on pondering how to place these large stage properties. The arrangement of each piece of furniture was thoughtfully designed with the lighting, music, images, stage, costumes, all the other designs, and connections with the overall production in mind. The creator explained the concept and ideas behind this piece to the design team and allowed them a flexible space to work. Together the creator and the design team accomplished the images of "Relationships". In the aspect of sound design, the sounds used in this piece had never been used in the performances in south Taiwan before. The combination of these sounds and the music brought a different acoustic experience to dance performances in south Taiwan.

“Relationships” should not be appreciated from only the angle of drama or dance, as it is about building relationships. Drawing from the idea of dance creation, Yen directed this show from the angle of dance, making it an original and unique breakthrough. It may be difficult for south Taiwan dance styles to move toward the direction of north Taiwan dance styles as cross-field art creation is never easy. Since always, Feng Dance Company has been trying to put cross-field art creation into practice. Yen’s “Relationships” has brought more possibilities to this field. With her innovative ideas and concepts and creation techniques, Yen has developed new styles in performance arts and brought new experiences to the audience in south Taiwan. With new concepts, new designs, and new creation techniques, Yen has been creating in an even higher level!