Hung Dance

Venue: Vancouver Playhouse

DanceHouse presents Hung Dance - Birdy

Creatures of a feather dance together in Birdy, Hung Dance’s call to the wild.

Employing a head piece called “Ling Zi” that incorporates pheasant tail feathers worn in traditional Chinese opera to represent warrior’s power and skill, Birdy offers up a magpie creation, concretizing bright bursts of freedom against the weighted cage of history.

Set to an eclectic mix of electronica and Chinese classical music, Birdy reinterprets percussion and seamlessly blends Tai-chi with contemporary dance. It portrays the journey from tradition to modernity, conveying a powerful message of society’s newfound ability to redefine class, freedom, and limitations, while seeking balance and identity.

The calligraphic eloquence of the Ling Zi’s four-foot-long feathers moves from gentleness to violence, transforming into spears, whips, and a blade drawn sharply across the throat. Whether extending the body into space, wriggling in earnest writing, or offering a gossamer caress, the feathers function as a form of punctuation, leading and echoing movement phrases with the expressive vitality of living things. As the dancers flock together in rippling patterns of conformity and divergence, group think meets the defiance of individual identity. What emerges is a universal cry for freedom. 

Founded in 2017 by choreographer Lai Hung-Chung, Hung Dance’s choreographic vocabulary is drawn from martial arts, Peking opera, and traditional cultural symbols. Through the prism of performance, Taiwan’s complex history and political status metamorphize into a thrilling new dance language.