Comments on the Finalist

The exquisite array and pattern formation of dancers as well as the elegant, delicate delivery of power and resonance between dancers that seem to embody the flow of air have been the consistent aesthetic core of LAI Hung-Chung’s dance choreography. This work, in addition to Lai’s characteristic formal beauty, turns dance into a thinking subject and unfurls an even more meaningful route of aesthetics. Using subtle, complex and countless human physical and inner experiences as a point of departure, the dance gradually unfurled on the stage seems like a distant journey amidst the worldly hustle and bustle, taking the audience into a cold, desolate realm. The dance body, as a medium of converting and interweaving physicality and meta-physicality, has been brought into full play by the choreographer. (Commentator / LIN Yu-Shih)

Artwork Introduction

See You originates from LAI Hung-Chung’s life experiences – the difficulties to see his family and the partings with or deaths of relatives and friends, which prompted him to contemplate on how to see these people again after saying “see you” and how to move forward while facing one’s past, present and future. The dance portrays various stories about bidding farewell and meeting again from an objective perspective, removing characters and clear delineation of events to concentrate on feelings and images in memories. With intentional blankness and flowy, transient landscape on the stage, the work creates a space for the audience to evoke their long-sealed memories and face those life experiences inscribed in one’s life as well as moments related to “saying goodbye and seeing again.”

About the Artist

LAI Hung-Chung was born in Kaohsiung in 1990. He received his first dance training when he entered Tsoying Senior High School’s Dance Class, and graduated from the Department of Dance, Taipei National University of the Arts. In 2016, he entered the 2016 Taiwan Creative Dance Competition, with his four choreographies winning the First Prize, two Honorable Mentions and one Merit Award, making him the first choreographer that won four prizes in one single edition of the competition. After founding HUNG DANCE, he concentrates on developing intersecting moments between dancers’ abilities and inspiring ideas of dance works. He also creates new methods of training based on the needs of the creative concepts to search for a balance between contemporary thinking and dance.

HUNG DANCE was founded in May 2017, with choreographer LAI Hung-Chung serving as its artistic director. The name of the dance company conveys the meaning of soaring high to fly in the sky. Drawing creative inspiration from everyday life, they incorporate inner emotions and physical states into dance movements to explore the subtle relationship between people and nature while extending the combination of Tai Chi and contemporary thinking to cultivate new dance vocabularies. The dance company develops its works along three axes, which are “Annual Production,” “International Co-production” and “Stray Bird Dance Platform.”