ArtsCross encounters

What are the ecologies of practice in and beyond rehearsals that make up the ArtsCross ecosystem? My interest in the ways that ArtsCross as a wider structural set-up is intertwined with a particular politics of sharing and exchanging makes me sensitive to certain aspects of practice which explicitly deal with the kinds of encounter that the project generates.

There is something about the ways that the dancers in I-Fen’s piece support each other, tell their stories, carry, move and spin each other; at times they are walking sideways, hanging, giving each other voice through holding a microphone… The playing and dancing through supporting each other that is taking place in rehearsals and the piece tells a wider story about working through something together, physically in the space.

At the end of rehearsals, Anh brings the dancers together in a circle, holding hands, with eyes closed, leaning and swaying, the whole group tuning in to each other…

Over these days I have observed unease, laughter, exhaustion, much discipline and persistence, as well as a growing sense of accomplishment, all of which underpin the kind of complicity we can see by now amongst the performers in all pieces. Scholars seem to share back aches from sitting on the side, either on chairs or on the ground…

I recall a recent conversation between choreographers who exchanged their experiences in their attempts to make individual dancers feed back verbally into the process. Issues of cultural differences come into play here and everyone seems in constant motion towards each other, sometimes tentatively, sometimes more boldly and not finding a meeting ground immediately.

Much of this encountering is also happening through the socialising that is taking place outside of the structured rehearsals and meetings, both amongst dancers as well as scholars, many of which are temporary visitors in Taipei… The heat, language, food and all that this city has to offer creates a particular frame for the kind of sharing and exchange that is taking place.

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