Weiwuying to stage identity-exploring 'Dance A Dance From My Yellow Skin'

Taipei, April 5 (CNA) "Dance A Dance From My Yellow Skin," a production that explores Asian Chinese identity through time, will be staged by the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, also known as "Weiwuying," next month.

The work's choreographer Chou Shu-yi (周書毅), said Thursday in an interview with reporters in Taipei that while Chinese people in Asia share "yellow skin and black hair," he wanted to explore this diverse group and its relationship with other ethnic groups through this piece.

Co-produced by Weiwuying and Singapore's Esplanade-Theaters on the Bay, the production premiered in Singapore in February, and received a "great response," with Taiwanese veteran artist Cheng Chih-chung (鄭志忠) attracting the most attention, Chou said.

Cheng, a survivor of polio, has been a performing artist in Taiwan since the 1980s.

"Taiwan is a place where different ethnic groups of people are looking for a common cultural bound. I wanted to use this perspective to observe the Chinese community in Singapore, which is also an island nation," Chou said.

Five of the nine dancers in the 90-minute piece were picked through 10 workshops in Singapore, while the remaining four are performers from Taiwan, Chou said.

When they first got togther, the nine dancers would began their day by sharing and discussing daily news stories before demonstrating dance movements from their respective cultural backgrounds, which Chou described as sharing "physical languages."

The dancers' native tongues range from Hokkien and Taiwan Hokkien to Hakka and English, and Chou said he also wanted to focus on spoken languages, especially the use of these different native languages, and how they are gradually falling out of use.

"Through this dance piece, all of us Asian Chinese are looking back to where we came from, how we arrived here, how our family moved here, and how we move forward, facing whatever diverse cultural elements remain within us," he said.

"How much of the history of the Asian Chinese is actually shared with other ethnic Chinese in the world?"

Chou described this piece as probably being his most "vocal" work because of the heavy use of dialogue and spoken words.

"Dance A Dance From My Yellow Skin," will be staged at Weiwuying in Kaohsiung May 3-4.