Leaping Maps: The Bodies That Danced Taiwan's History
The Weiwuying "Mapping Taiwan Dance Memories" 2026 Exhibition—Leaping Maps: The Bodies That Danced Taiwan's History—breaks free from the rigid boundaries imposed by the state. It traces the migration paths of pioneering dancers, community performance groups, and Indigenous troupes. Focusing on bodily practices intertwined with war, displacement, and labor, the exhibition illuminates the overlooked corners of Taiwan's modern and contemporary dance history.
This map remains unfinished and continuously active. Centered around a dynamic migration topography, the exhibition invites viewers to stand where history and the present overlap, and to join in mapping the next steps of Taiwan's dance memories.
Section Introductions
Unit 1: Together: At Ease, Attention, Out of Line
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the state used Chinese National Dance (minzu wudao) for political messaging and to discipline the body. This section explores how pioneering dancers LEE Hui-mei, CHIEN Tzu-ai, and CHIANG Ming-chu, alongside community performance groups, carved out their own paths under strict state control by folding suppressed Eastern, Western, and preserving local elements into official narratives.
Unit 2: __ __ Unbound: Who Am I Now? Experiments in Body and Identity
After the lifting of martial law, artists in Taiwan's dance scene turned to what was then called the "Oriental body" in their search for cultural identity. This unit showcases how dancers and critics together shaped the period's aesthetics, placing dance criticism from the 1990s alongside Taipei Dance Circle's experiments with "Modern Dance on Baby Oil". It explores how dance artists redefined the cultural roots and visual imagery of contemporary dance in Taiwan.
Unit 3: Are We Only Bystanders? Walking the Fault Lines of History
This unit centers on a pivotal creative turn for the Formosa Aboriginal Singing and Dance Troupe beginning in 2007. Through historically grounded theater works, it explores colonial trauma—from the life of Tsou intellectual 高一生 Uyongu YATAUYUNGANA (KAO Yi-sheng) to the Cikasuan Incident. Showcasing the original songs and props from the works, it invites viewers to move beyond being mere spectators and to confront the sacrifices and pain buried beneath these historical ruptures.
Exhibition Highlights
Leaping Maps: Dynamic Migration Topography
The map of dance history is not defined by national borders, but is a dynamic trajectory trod by bodies amidst post-war displacement and labor. This map remains unfinished and continuously active. We invite you to join in mapping the next steps together.
Mapping Taiwan Dance Memories: Oral History Videos
This section presents research from the 2026 Mapping Taiwan Dance Memories project. It features oral-history interviews with ten dance practitioners (including SHIH Hui-chu, HSU Chun-hsian, and YU Hao-yen), revealing parts of Taiwan's dance history through their life accounts that written records have often overlooked.
Interactive Space
Where Do You See Yourself? We Are All Part of the Map
Countless bodies have left their paths across history. This exhibition has traced Taiwan’s dance history through authoritarian rule, experiments in cultural root-seeking, and encounters with historical trauma, and now arrives at the present.
This map remains unfinished. We invite you to reflect on who you are at this moment:
- If you were free from other people's expectations, what expression or movement would you choose to show the world?
- Think of an experience that has left a lasting mark. What kind of movement would show how you carry it with you into the future?
We invite you to add your response to these memories. As they overlap, individual responses will become a shared record of the most authentic historical strata of this city.
Funding Agency
 |
This project is supported by the Ministry of Culture (MOC) Reconstruction of Taiwan's Art History 2.0 project
Host
National Performing Art Center-National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying)
Curatorial Team
Mapping Taiwan Dance Memories Core Research Team
Exhibition Production
Space & Woods Exhibition Design Co., Ltd.
More
►Mapping Taiwan Dance Memories
Leaping Maps: The Bodies That Danced Taiwan's History
The Weiwuying "Mapping Taiwan Dance Memories" 2026 Exhibition—Leaping Maps: The Bodies That Danced Taiwan's History—breaks free from the rigid boundaries imposed by the state. It traces the migration paths of pioneering dancers, community performance groups, and Indigenous troupes. Focusing on bodily practices intertwined with war, displacement, and labor, the exhibition illuminates the overlooked corners of Taiwan's modern and contemporary dance history.
This map remains unfinished and continuously active. Centered around a dynamic migration topography, the exhibition invites viewers to stand where history and the present overlap, and to join in mapping the next steps of Taiwan's dance memories.
Section Introductions
Unit 1: Together: At Ease, Attention, Out of Line
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the state used Chinese National Dance (minzu wudao) for political messaging and to discipline the body. This section explores how pioneering dancers LEE Hui-mei, CHIEN Tzu-ai, and CHIANG Ming-chu, alongside community performance groups, carved out their own paths under strict state control by folding suppressed Eastern, Western, and preserving local elements into official narratives.
Unit 2: __ __ Unbound: Who Am I Now? Experiments in Body and Identity
After the lifting of martial law, artists in Taiwan's dance scene turned to what was then called the "Oriental body" in their search for cultural identity. This unit showcases how dancers and critics together shaped the period's aesthetics, placing dance criticism from the 1990s alongside Taipei Dance Circle's experiments with "Modern Dance on Baby Oil". It explores how dance artists redefined the cultural roots and visual imagery of contemporary dance in Taiwan.
Unit 3: Are We Only Bystanders? Walking the Fault Lines of History
This unit centers on a pivotal creative turn for the Formosa Aboriginal Singing and Dance Troupe beginning in 2007. Through historically grounded theater works, it explores colonial trauma—from the life of Tsou intellectual 高一生 Uyongu YATAUYUNGANA (KAO Yi-sheng) to the Cikasuan Incident. Showcasing the original songs and props from the works, it invites viewers to move beyond being mere spectators and to confront the sacrifices and pain buried beneath these historical ruptures.
Exhibition Highlights
Leaping Maps: Dynamic Migration Topography
The map of dance history is not defined by national borders, but is a dynamic trajectory trod by bodies amidst post-war displacement and labor. This map remains unfinished and continuously active. We invite you to join in mapping the next steps together.
Mapping Taiwan Dance Memories: Oral History Videos
This section presents research from the 2026 Mapping Taiwan Dance Memories project. It features oral-history interviews with ten dance practitioners (including SHIH Hui-chu, HSU Chun-hsian, and YU Hao-yen), revealing parts of Taiwan's dance history through their life accounts that written records have often overlooked.
Interactive Space
Where Do You See Yourself? We Are All Part of the Map
Countless bodies have left their paths across history. This exhibition has traced Taiwan’s dance history through authoritarian rule, experiments in cultural root-seeking, and encounters with historical trauma, and now arrives at the present.
This map remains unfinished. We invite you to reflect on who you are at this moment:
- If you were free from other people's expectations, what expression or movement would you choose to show the world?
- Think of an experience that has left a lasting mark. What kind of movement would show how you carry it with you into the future?
We invite you to add your response to these memories. As they overlap, individual responses will become a shared record of the most authentic historical strata of this city.
Funding Agency
|
This project is supported by the Ministry of Culture (MOC) Reconstruction of Taiwan's Art History 2.0 project
Host
National Performing Art Center-National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying)
Curatorial Team
Mapping Taiwan Dance Memories Core Research Team
Exhibition Production
Space & Woods Exhibition Design Co., Ltd.
More
►Mapping Taiwan Dance Memories
