2006-12-13
It is Hard to be a Salesman and a Creator at the Same Time!
Sun-Shier Dance Theatre is founded by two women, Pi-Jung Wu and Hsiu-Ping Chang, considered the most promising young dance company in Taiwan, in 1997. Reflecting the age of its founders, Sun-Shier means thirty in Chinese and lives up to what Confucius said: At age of thirty, I stood firm.
Pi-Jung Wu and Hsiu-Ping Chang, Sun-Shier Dance Theatre
Sun-Shier, despite having only five full-time dancers the company, makes a point of also having a professional administrator in addition to its two founder / choreographers. But it also seems to be a constant in Taiwan's most successful dance companies.
From International Arts Manager Magazine, by Mike Farish
By gathering young and creative Taiwanese choreographers and providing a vehicle through which they can demonstrate their talents, Sun-Shier Dance Theatre is renowned for its ability to present various dance styles, especially pay lots of attention on feminine issues. Their representative productions, for instance, are dancing along with the images of the Mirror in the reality, emphasizing Prepare the Princess the structure of three dancers on different platforms and the meteorological phenomena foundation of Butterflying. For celebrating its 10th anniversary, Sun-Shier will have touring in Taiwan (in April), Los Angeles and New York (in October).
AMN: Could you please talk about the circumstances and development of modern dance (companies) in Chinese-speaking regions?
Sun-Shier: Actually, most of the modern dance in Chinese-speaking areas comes from the Western, based on the body training. These skills, for instance, are established by Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Jose Limon etc. Since 1970, they influence not only on body languages, but also the ideas or elements of modern dance works in Eastern so deeply, even though these choreographers use Chinese legends as subject matters!
But during these 20 years, the choreographers begin to combine the orient idiosyncrasy into the productions, for example, Tai Chi, Martial Art and so on. Through cultures discrepancy, it stimulates a new body language, and becomes a fresh tendency toward development in Chinese-speaking fields. Herewith the trend declares to the Western world: it is just NEW!!
However, due to less resource of people and money, the major part of modern but small dance companies in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia belong to pick-up group (few core members, but gather together when they have performances); bigger companies, for example Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, that has more subsidies and sponsor from government and enterprise, they could retain full-time administrators and dancers, and have better studios.
AMN: What are the opportunities and threatens for Sun-Shier Dance Theatre when so many foreigner modern dance groups giving performances in Asia?
Sun-Shier: Foreigner groups perform here provides us the opportunities to observe and to learn from them. Watching programs performed by the major dance companies in the world could both widen our vision and evaluate our works without spending any airfares. But there are always threatens more than opportunities when foreigner groups perform here. One of these threatens is that programs produced by local companies are put on the same table along with programs from abroad. There are more options for the audience, but on the other hand, this kind of competition is not fair to the local companies. Audience will not know the different situations to produce a program between in Taiwan and in other countries. So the first threaten will affect the box office.
AMN: As director and dancer, how do you balance your role?
Sun-Shier: Now we are working as both directors and choreographers in Sun-Shier Dance Theatre. As a director needs to plan the schedule ahead for the company and also has to find more founding to keep the company running. As a choreographer always hope to have more time to work with dancers, and hope to have more budgets to do the costumes, stage sets, more delicate lightings etc. But we always have to compromise something under a limited budget. And before a new production premiere the ticket-selling is a tuff task for us. It is hard to be a salesman and a creator at the same time. However, we need a manager to do the promotion in both marketing and found-raising for the company. But we need to find more money to pay that person. Before this situation solved Pi-Jung and Hsiu-Ping still need to do all the jobs and try to find a balance to do the best in everything; yet both directors consider that the choreography is the first priority after all. And how do we balance our roles? Just keep our mind clear and cool then we can do jobs better.
AMN: How does Sun-Shier Dance Theatre interact with the audience and community? What are your strategies? And what does the important element for marketing of Sun-Shier Dance Theatre?
Sun-Shier: We have been participated the suburban community tours that organized by the government for years. But the effects of these dance-popularization activities are not easy to evaluate in a short time. Because that it is hard or inconvenient for the audience who saw our performance in the suburban tours to come to see our performance in the cities unless they are really curious or interested to our company.
We know that you need to make people interested in something then they will try to participate in it. We are lucky to have a studio which is also a small black-box performing space. In 2005 we started organizing a series of dance showcase called Saloon at Sun-Shier, and opened this space to the public and provided all the sources we can give to whom are eager to create different kinds of arts. Through watching and sharing works to make a deeper communication with the audience. The showcase is in its second year, we hope that the activity can keep going and this small space could be one of the performing venues in Taipei in the future.
By doing so, we hope to give the audience a good impression both of modern dance and of the company. Of course, they will be in our mailing list whenever we have performances or any activities. And furthermore we will encourage them to bring their friends to participate any activities hold by Sun-Shier. And the company also set a Web-blog site as a table to keep information post. We believe that this is a more practical way to establish the audience because that the most important elements for marketing are people and connection.
AMN: Established for 10 years, does Sun-Shier Dance Theatre prepare for transformation?
Sun-Shier: Yes, we intend to. But the transformation takes time to do the pavement. We think that the accumulation of each facet of the company is very important, such as the ability to produce programs, a good team of both artistic part and technique part, a group of excellent dancers, and an efficient administration staff, a long-term financial sponsorship and supportive audience. We are trying to make the facets that mentioned above better, stronger and more professional. We would say that the intention and the preparation for the transformation are there and we are working on it.
For further information: http://www.30dance.com/eng%20-parisinfo.htm
For watching short pieces: http://www.30dance.com/video/index.htm
From International Arts Manager Magazine, by Mike Farish
By gathering young and creative Taiwanese choreographers and providing a vehicle through which they can demonstrate their talents, Sun-Shier Dance Theatre is renowned for its ability to present various dance styles, especially pay lots of attention on feminine issues. Their representative productions, for instance, are dancing along with the images of the Mirror in the reality, emphasizing Prepare the Princess the structure of three dancers on different platforms and the meteorological phenomena foundation of Butterflying. For celebrating its 10th anniversary, Sun-Shier will have touring in Taiwan (in April), Los Angeles and New York (in October).
AMN: Could you please talk about the circumstances and development of modern dance (companies) in Chinese-speaking regions?
Sun-Shier: Actually, most of the modern dance in Chinese-speaking areas comes from the Western, based on the body training. These skills, for instance, are established by Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Jose Limon etc. Since 1970, they influence not only on body languages, but also the ideas or elements of modern dance works in Eastern so deeply, even though these choreographers use Chinese legends as subject matters!
But during these 20 years, the choreographers begin to combine the orient idiosyncrasy into the productions, for example, Tai Chi, Martial Art and so on. Through cultures discrepancy, it stimulates a new body language, and becomes a fresh tendency toward development in Chinese-speaking fields. Herewith the trend declares to the Western world: it is just NEW!!
However, due to less resource of people and money, the major part of modern but small dance companies in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia belong to pick-up group (few core members, but gather together when they have performances); bigger companies, for example Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, that has more subsidies and sponsor from government and enterprise, they could retain full-time administrators and dancers, and have better studios.
AMN: What are the opportunities and threatens for Sun-Shier Dance Theatre when so many foreigner modern dance groups giving performances in Asia?
Sun-Shier: Foreigner groups perform here provides us the opportunities to observe and to learn from them. Watching programs performed by the major dance companies in the world could both widen our vision and evaluate our works without spending any airfares. But there are always threatens more than opportunities when foreigner groups perform here. One of these threatens is that programs produced by local companies are put on the same table along with programs from abroad. There are more options for the audience, but on the other hand, this kind of competition is not fair to the local companies. Audience will not know the different situations to produce a program between in Taiwan and in other countries. So the first threaten will affect the box office.
AMN: As director and dancer, how do you balance your role?
Sun-Shier: Now we are working as both directors and choreographers in Sun-Shier Dance Theatre. As a director needs to plan the schedule ahead for the company and also has to find more founding to keep the company running. As a choreographer always hope to have more time to work with dancers, and hope to have more budgets to do the costumes, stage sets, more delicate lightings etc. But we always have to compromise something under a limited budget. And before a new production premiere the ticket-selling is a tuff task for us. It is hard to be a salesman and a creator at the same time. However, we need a manager to do the promotion in both marketing and found-raising for the company. But we need to find more money to pay that person. Before this situation solved Pi-Jung and Hsiu-Ping still need to do all the jobs and try to find a balance to do the best in everything; yet both directors consider that the choreography is the first priority after all. And how do we balance our roles? Just keep our mind clear and cool then we can do jobs better.
AMN: How does Sun-Shier Dance Theatre interact with the audience and community? What are your strategies? And what does the important element for marketing of Sun-Shier Dance Theatre?
Sun-Shier: We have been participated the suburban community tours that organized by the government for years. But the effects of these dance-popularization activities are not easy to evaluate in a short time. Because that it is hard or inconvenient for the audience who saw our performance in the suburban tours to come to see our performance in the cities unless they are really curious or interested to our company.
We know that you need to make people interested in something then they will try to participate in it. We are lucky to have a studio which is also a small black-box performing space. In 2005 we started organizing a series of dance showcase called Saloon at Sun-Shier, and opened this space to the public and provided all the sources we can give to whom are eager to create different kinds of arts. Through watching and sharing works to make a deeper communication with the audience. The showcase is in its second year, we hope that the activity can keep going and this small space could be one of the performing venues in Taipei in the future.
By doing so, we hope to give the audience a good impression both of modern dance and of the company. Of course, they will be in our mailing list whenever we have performances or any activities. And furthermore we will encourage them to bring their friends to participate any activities hold by Sun-Shier. And the company also set a Web-blog site as a table to keep information post. We believe that this is a more practical way to establish the audience because that the most important elements for marketing are people and connection.
AMN: Established for 10 years, does Sun-Shier Dance Theatre prepare for transformation?
Sun-Shier: Yes, we intend to. But the transformation takes time to do the pavement. We think that the accumulation of each facet of the company is very important, such as the ability to produce programs, a good team of both artistic part and technique part, a group of excellent dancers, and an efficient administration staff, a long-term financial sponsorship and supportive audience. We are trying to make the facets that mentioned above better, stronger and more professional. We would say that the intention and the preparation for the transformation are there and we are working on it.
For further information: http://www.30dance.com/eng%20-parisinfo.htm
For watching short pieces: http://www.30dance.com/video/index.htm
Interview with Pi-Jung Wu and Hsiu-Ping Chang, Founders and Choreographers of Sun-Shier Dance Theatre, led by by Maxine Wu, Arts Management Network
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