2024
2024
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
About the Program
Fortunately, Don't Cry, Dancing Girls made it in time to reach audiences before the pandemic outbreak. During the disciplined day-to-day life of the level 3 epidemic alert, the music video for Don't Cry, Dancing Girls' amassed 300,000 views within just 2 days, after which it continued to grow in popularity by way of the online news media and word of mouth.
Succeeding the major work Reed Unbroken, VMTheatre Company's Don't Cry, Dancing Girls again attempts to pit humans on stage with ghosts. The characters of Don't Cry, Dancing Girls, derived from Russian playwright Anton CHEKHOV's famous work Three Sisters, are reinfused with Taiwanese elements, which include Taoist priests, the spirit-escorting ceremony, professional mourners, and Si-So-Mi. The traditional Taiwanese funeral is thus transformed into a local carnival of life and death, reaching a fervor where ghosts are propelled to come out to cry and dance along with humans.
When three sisters returned after many years to their old family home in Huwei, Yunlin, they found that their uncle, aunt, third great-uncle, and second great-aunt had hardly aged a day; only the passage of time had left its mark on the derelict house. The sisters, initially falling over each other to waive their right to inheritance, in an unexpected series of events were drawn into their second great-uncle's dying wish—the Song family member that performs in the soul-guiding song troupe may receive the family's multimillion-dollar inheritance. The three sisters took on the challenge; with the aim of splitting the inheritance, they started from scratch and trained themselves in the art of the soul-guiding song.
The three siblings will together present a dance of youth, dancing for all of life's regrets and commemorating the challenges, large and small, brought about by fate, as well as those perpetually absent parents, cha cha, cha cha cha! Don't Cry, Dancing Girls, created through the collaboration between veteran director TSENG Hui-Cheng, emerging composer Robert KANG, and Golden Bell Award-winning playwright ZHAN Jie, is a love letter written and dedicated to this land and the people living on it.
The VMTheatre Company, founded in 2007, is based on the performance concepts and creative structure of New York's musicals. The Company looks for themes related to contemporary life from a humanistic point of view. The Company is especially interested in working and developing with young artists in music, dance, literature, and theatre in the hope of contributing to the evolution of Taiwan's own musical culture through exchanging views and crossover collaborations.
The Company expects the audience to witness a piece of genuine human life, not merely a performance. As the actors experience aspects of life through the script, choreography, and music, their productions aim to become an experience that is not only emotionally shared between the performers and the audience, but something of a collaboration between performers and audience members.
VMTheatre Company is selected as NCAF 2021-2024 TAIWAN TOP Performing Arts Group.
From the Curating Team
Cinematic Taiwan explores Taiwan and the self through a concert that transcends time, and a music tour that searches for Indigenous roots.
About the Program
Fortunately, Don't Cry, Dancing Girls made it in time to reach audiences before the pandemic outbreak. During the disciplined day-to-day life of the level 3 epidemic alert, the music video for Don't Cry, Dancing Girls' amassed 300,000 views within just 2 days, after which it continued to grow in popularity by way of the online news media and word of mouth.
Succeeding the major work Reed Unbroken, VMTheatre Company's Don't Cry, Dancing Girls again attempts to pit humans on stage with ghosts. The characters of Don't Cry, Dancing Girls, derived from Russian playwright Anton CHEKHOV's famous work Three Sisters, are reinfused with Taiwanese elements, which include Taoist priests, the spirit-escorting ceremony, professional mourners, and Si-So-Mi. The traditional Taiwanese funeral is thus transformed into a local carnival of life and death, reaching a fervor where ghosts are propelled to come out to cry and dance along with humans.
When three sisters returned after many years to their old family home in Huwei, Yunlin, they found that their uncle, aunt, third great-uncle, and second great-aunt had hardly aged a day; only the passage of time had left its mark on the derelict house. The sisters, initially falling over each other to waive their right to inheritance, in an unexpected series of events were drawn into their second great-uncle's dying wish—the Song family member that performs in the soul-guiding song troupe may receive the family's multimillion-dollar inheritance. The three sisters took on the challenge; with the aim of splitting the inheritance, they started from scratch and trained themselves in the art of the soul-guiding song.
The three siblings will together present a dance of youth, dancing for all of life's regrets and commemorating the challenges, large and small, brought about by fate, as well as those perpetually absent parents, cha cha, cha cha cha! Don't Cry, Dancing Girls, created through the collaboration between veteran director TSENG Hui-Cheng, emerging composer Robert KANG, and Golden Bell Award-winning playwright ZHAN Jie, is a love letter written and dedicated to this land and the people living on it.
The VMTheatre Company, founded in 2007, is based on the performance concepts and creative structure of New York's musicals. The Company looks for themes related to contemporary life from a humanistic point of view. The Company is especially interested in working and developing with young artists in music, dance, literature, and theatre in the hope of contributing to the evolution of Taiwan's own musical culture through exchanging views and crossover collaborations.
The Company expects the audience to witness a piece of genuine human life, not merely a performance. As the actors experience aspects of life through the script, choreography, and music, their productions aim to become an experience that is not only emotionally shared between the performers and the audience, but something of a collaboration between performers and audience members.
VMTheatre Company is selected as NCAF 2021-2024 TAIWAN TOP Performing Arts Group.
From the Curating Team
Cinematic Taiwan explores Taiwan and the self through a concert that transcends time, and a music tour that searches for Indigenous roots.
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Performance / Vendor / Sponsorship Opportunities
TAIWANfest Toronto is grateful to be held on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, that is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We acknowledge our privilege to be gathered here, and commit to work with and be respectful to the Indigenous peoples of this land while we engage in meaningful conversations of culture and reconciliation.