Departing from previous theatrical models for choreography, Lo Man-fei uses pure elements of sound and movement to structure her new work, The Sound of Dance. Pictured here, celebrated Nanguan musician Wang Shin-shin performs as part of the piece. (courtesy of Crossover)

Ten years ago, a group of middle-aged dancers, knowing their performing days were numbered, came together to create a second artistic life for themselves and open a new path for dance in Taiwan....

On a cool autumn night in October, audiences in Ilan and Taipei are watching a dialogue between music and dance.

Listening to The Sound of Dance

The curtain rises, the lights come up, a black veil curtain flows down from the ceiling, and faint music slowly fills the theater. As if stepping out of a Chinese painting, a Tang-dynasty lady walks onto the stage, strumming a plaintive song in the ancient Nanguan style on a pipa lute. By turns piercing and gentle, the song's mournful tune elicits both grief and joy. The audience see the light shining on the platform behind the veil curtain, and glimpse the flowing, diaphanous outline of what seems to be a goddess from a Western painting. She follows the music in a slow and subtle dance, while in front of the curtain, dancers playing a mortal man and women dance and stretch their bodies, expressing the passion within.

As the pipa fades out, a violin begins playing a Baroque tune, and the broad movements of the man and women change into the rhythmic movements of marionettes. They seem to be seeking their true inner feelings, lost in the convergence of Eastern and Western music, while comfortably merging with the notes to become a dance concerto of no specific time, place or nation.

To look from another perspective, the famous Nanguan musician on one end of the stage, next to the beautiful marionette dance, seems to be performing a tale of love. In another sense, she might be an ordinary person drawn in by the ethereal space represented by the combination of East, West, ancient and modern portrayed by the female dancers-a flowing movement that shuttles between heaven and earth, past and present. When the dance is over and everyone has gone home, only the echoes of the music, as pure as the sounds of nature, remain in the audience's ears.

This is the always courageous, always experimental work of the Taipei Crossover Dance Company-The Sound of Dance. Through light traces of dance movement and music, the company explores the movements of culture, moving audiences' hearts and opening up their understanding of the meaning of art.