Comments on the Finalist

This dance is accompanied with pop songs familiar to the audience, which seems an effortless combination but in fact not quite the case. The lingering resonance of the apparent joyous atmosphere is a testament to the choreographer’s competence. The brilliance of #Yes or No is twofold: 1. material and collation: the work incorporates dancers’ life stories and songs, and subtly reflects different social oppressions as well as every individual’s solution; 2. deployment and arrangement: the work preserves each performer’s characteristics, rendering each one of them very noticeable. Overall, the work achieves a perfect balance between heaviness and lightness, which is indeed an accomplishment. Bulareyaung Dance Company started with indigenous topics, and has arrived at a higher level with #Yes or No, which not only continues their characteristics but also reaches a wider scope with great magnitude. (Commentator: WEI Wan-Jung)

Artwork Introduction

The dance title, #Yes or No, comes from a habitual tag question in indigenous people’s daily verbal expression, which indicates exclamation, question or conclusion. The choreography of this dance originates from asking the questions – “Why do people sing? What are the songs that must be sung? Why is a song important?” – and elicits the responses of the dancers, who are passionate about singing, spoken words and dance. Starting with the joyous songs sung in karaoke, the dancers gradually reveal their real experiences and traumas. The dancers therefore incorporate their individual attributes and life stories into the dance, forming a contrast between the popular, hit songs and difficult life circumstances, along with social oppressions and antagonizing stigmas, in individual lives. With the towering wailing wall covered with emotional words on the stage and the lighting design reminiscent of karaoke booths, the dance conveys a deeply felt and realistic portrayal, understanding and healing.

About the Artist

Bulareyaung Dance and Cultural Foundation
Paiwan choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava used to be a dancer in Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and a resident choreographer in Cloud Gate 2. He has been invited to create choreography for the renowned US dance company, Martha Graham Dance Company. In 2014, he returned to his hometown in Taitung and founded his own dance company at the disused Taitung Sugar Factory. There, he and a dozen of young dancers from eastern Taiwan have explored Taiwan’s indigenous culture and the unique humanistic essence of Taiwan’s east coast through the interrelation between sound and body movement, cultivating the body expression and vocabulary in contemporary indigenous dance.