Floating Flowers features images of floating lanterns, objects invested with special meaning in Taiwanese folk beliefs. (photo by Chen Chang-chih)
 

This soft-spoken young man has demonstrated a creative capacity that has amazed the world. Let’s follow in his footsteps to enter the world of dance creation.

Portrait of the dancer as a young man

Tsai was a clever child, but he wasn’t interested in schoolwork. He was constantly moving, so when he was in fifth or sixth grade his mother enrolled him in a dance class to help him burn off energy. She discovered that when he was dancing, he was happy and his eyes brightened.

In junior high school, the faculty advisor to the dance team saw that Tsai had an excellent sense of rhythm and invited him to join. “The junior-high dance team performed popular dancing, folk dancing, street dancing and lion dancing.” Because the team often went out to compete, it gave Tsai an excuse to be away from school while still competing in its name. It’s fair to say that Tsai’s family first pushed him down the path toward becoming a dancer, but his first systematic study of the art occurred in the Dance Division at Tso­ying Senior High School in Kao­hsiung.

Tsai recalls that in the dance program at Tsoying, there were basic demands made about grooming and clothes, and boys and girls were taught a proper conception of physical contact. They also learned how to make best use of their time. They were at school from 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mornings were reserved for their academic classes, and the afternoons were for training in the arts, followed by dance team training, study hall and so forth. Sometimes they’d stay late for dress rehearsals. After the step-by-step explanations of the choreo­graphy, it would be ten or so before they called it a day. The values and discipline instilled have seeped into the very way he has lived his life ever since.

Studying overseas

For the graduation show in his senior year of high school, Tsai choreo­graphed a dance he called Self Portraits. It was a group dance that reflected each dancer’s individual personality. The work not only found favor with the judges, but also gave him early experience with the different roles of choreo­grapher and dancer, as well as the interchange between them. It was a valuable experience.

Tsai then entered the dance program at Tai­pei National University of the Arts. In his sophomore year, the Kao­hsiung City Ballet invited him to help choreo­graph a dance for its annual “Dance Shoes” program. “Looking back at it, it may not have been the most mature work, but it’s only because I put things out there back then that I know today what will work.”

TNUA and the Ministry of Culture were providing funding for outstanding students to go on exchanges at educational institutions overseas, and Tsai took advantage of the opportunity to study at the State University of New York at Purchase. In his spare time at Purchase, Tsai would visit the Broadway Dance Center in New York City, where he gained deeper exposure to street dancing, ballet, modern dance, jazz dance and so forth. While he was overseas, he also attended many arts performances and visited many museums. Those rich experiences nourished his creativity.

His time in New York opened his mind, awakening him to the importance of not “painting by the numbers” when creating art. And the chance encounters he had in everyday life also offered lessons and stimulation of a different kind. When others were still worrying about what directions they wanted to take in their lives, he was focusing his creative energies on his next performance.

Raising Taiwan’s creative profile

“My first work, for two dancers, was Floating Flowers,” notes Tsai. “I drew from the symbolic meaning given to floating lanterns in Taiwan folk beliefs and matched them with choreography and musical accompaniment that were very Western in style.” For costumes he used petticoats from Western-style wedding dresses, and he chose music by a Canadian composer. The work therefore took Eastern ideas and explained them using Western methods. It pulled European audiences closer, allowing Eastern culture not to seem quite so distant.

Another work of his, Hugin/Munin, features two ravens that are pets of Odin, the God of War. One symbolizes memory and the other thinking. They fly out to eavesdrop, discovering much about the population. When Odin meets with people or prepares to inflict punishment, the ravens report to him about the people concerned. For this dance, Tsai integrated some choreo­graphy inspired by Eastern martial arts. Thus the work is Western in conception and inspiration, but it uses Eastern methods of choreographic explication. Foreign audiences find it quite captivating.

What’s more, Tsai’s Innermost again blends East and West by drawing from the idea of “chaos­mos” (James Joyce’s portmanteau of “chaos” and “cosmos”) and the Buddhist concept of “void.” The red stick in it represents the axis of time and suggests the hour, minute or second hands on a clock. But because time continuously flows, it is difficult to find zero on its axis. So Tsai also employs two dancers, who in fact are different facets of the same person—representing the deep connections made when time and space completely merge with the self, such that the “void” comes into being and one can find true inner peace. The Danish newspaper Politiken praised it thus: “The evening’s most surprising feature, which scored the biggest applause, [was] a duel between two men and a red stick, created by Taiwanese Po-­Cheng Tsai.”

Concern for each member of his ensemble

Chang ­Chien-chih, a dancer in Tsai’s B.Dance company, was a classmate of Tsai’s in high school and college. But they didn’t start collaborating closely until 2014’s Floating Flowers. B.Dance’s manager Hsu Tzu-yin says, “I feel it’s marvelous that after ­Chien-chih and Po-­cheng started to work together, Po-­cheng gradually drew out another side of ­Chien-chih’s personality. In return, ­Chien-chih gives him a lot of feedback during the process of creating and refining the choreography.” 

Dancer ­Chang Yu, another B.Dance member, hid much of her personality as a child, unwilling to expose her inner self. Once, during a dress rehearsal, Tsai wanted to uncover deeper levels of her psyche, so he said, “OK, let’s turn off the lights.” She collapsed in tears: “I don’t know why, but after my feelings were exposed I became better able to bring my emotions to dance.” ­Chang describes the epiphany she had then as being one of the major turning points in her career as a dancer. And it was something that dance programs in educational institutions couldn’t give her, because the breakthrough required someone with acute sensitivity and observational powers to help her achieve it.

“Each of our works has some solos,” notes B.Dance dancer ­Huang I-han. “During the adagiocombinations, I’m more relaxed, conveying a sense of mystery, and then during the allegro segments I can let out the more edgy and impetuous side of me. I feel that Po-­cheng gives dancers a lot of space to try things and make personal breakthroughs. It’s a comfortable collaboration.”

Describing the rehearsal process, ­Chang ­Chien-chih notes that Tsai always prepares himself well before calling everyone in to practice. “After we dancers arrive at the practice space, the rehearsal that was originally scheduled for three hours usually can be handled in an hour and a half.” Tsai is always able to make the most efficient use of his time when preparing to perform dances with high degrees of difficulty—a skill that requires both a mastery of the choreography and an excellent ability to observe each dancer closely.

And when B.Dance goes on tour, the company provides for the dancers’ accommodation and meals better than most, because Tsai wants dancers to focus on dancing. The company thus aims to offer all the behind-the-scenes support it can. Trust and mutual respect among company members is slowly built from these small details.

Inviting international dancers

When Tsai tours abroad, he discovers choreo­graph­ers of different genera­tions and invites them to ­Taiwan to share their experiences. So far, he has extended invitations to top dancers and choreo­graph­ers from France, Italy, Israel, Argentina and Spain. Their visits allow students of dance in Taiwan to understand international dance trends and the highest levels of the art. In that way, when they found companies of their own, they won’t fall short of international standards.

Additionally, B.Dance plans to launch the internationally oriented B.Plan Collaboration this year. For the inaugural program Marcos Morau, founder and artistic director of the Spanish dance company La Veronal, has been invited to Taiwan. Morau and Tsai will pick the most suitable dancers from the two com­pan­ies to perform works by Tsai in the unique style of Morau. Both are millennials, and their collaboration will allow audiences here to see a blending of youthful creativity from two different nations. It’s a daunting challenge, and one that dance afi­cion­ados are eagerly awaiting.