CNTRFLD. Origins and Encounters

Many of your dancers come from tribal communities and may not have had formal dance training before joining your company. How did those first meetings happen — did you find them, or did they somehow find you? What draws you to certain people and makes you feel they belong in the Bulareyaung Dance Company?

BDC. A pure heart, an honest body, and a real hunger to dance.

We hold an open audition every year at the end of the year. Because there are no restrictions, the process is always full of surprises. From this wide range of people, we look for the souls who feel right to work with. So, it’s not necessarily the best technical dancers who join the company. Some are graduates from Taipei National University of the Arts; others are Indigenous dancers with no formal training. Apart from physical ability, everyone must also be able to sing — and that’s something not everyone can do. It’s this combination that has shaped our dancers’ distinct personalities and our company’s unique character of being equally strong in both singing and dancing.

CNTRFLD. Shared Journeys

Your dancers often speak of rediscovering their roots through your work. How do you guide them through this process — helping them translate memory, song, or daily life into movement?

BDC. I think it’s the environment in Taitung — the slower rhythm of life. It taught me not to force immediate results. I learned to slow down and spend more time with the dancers, letting them create and speak for themselves. Through that journey of self-exploration and self-questioning, they find their identity again and reconnect with their roots. Once the roots are steady, a unique flower naturally blooms.

CNTRFLD. Becoming Dancers

Some of your company members began with little or no professional training. How do you approach developing them as dancers — not just technically, but emotionally and creatively? What kind of transformation do you witness as they grow through the company’s work?

BDC. Daily morning training is essential. In addition to Indigenous traditional dance and music, we train in ballet, contemporary, street dance, yoga — building a strong foundation is important. Afternoon rehearsals are for exploring the body. There was a time when dancers told me: “Stop working with us using your Taipei mindset. Stop asking us to imagine. Take us to the mountains — let us do real physical labour. Only then can we develop the movement you want.”

So rehearsals began happening outside the studio — clearing land in the mountains, feeling the waves by the sea, letting real sensations settle into the body. This is rare in most dance companies.

For dancers with formal training, they were used to instruction-based work and were frustrated by how much time we spent outdoors — they thought it was a waste of time. Meanwhile, the non-trained dancers wondered why they still had to learn ballet or contemporary techniques. When these two mindsets collided, we had to find a new way of dancing.
So we asked them to become each other’s teachers. Non-trained dancers learned discipline and structure; trained dancers learned to let go of habitual movement and allow the body to be free.

By the third year, their attitudes slowly shifted. After five years, this way of working became natural. We broke conventions, learned from one another, and since everyone started from different places, we built a new starting point together — creating a dance language of our own.

CNTRFLD. Tradition in Motion

In pieces like <LUNA>, you draw from Indigenous songs and rituals, yet the results feel deeply contemporary. Could you walk us through how your dancers participate in shaping that process — from listening and research to improvisation and choreography?

BDC. The Bunun “Praise for the War Achievements” helped dancers find their own connection to tradition. As the Bunun elders said: “We never knew this ritual could be transformed in such a way. We can hear the dancers’ stories yet still feel the spirit of the tradition. It is truly moving.”

For the first three years of developing LUNA, I intentionally stopped the trained dancers from using their habitual movement vocabulary. Instead, I had them walk, stomp, crawl — very simple actions — repeated with traditional songs until the songs soaked into their bodies. Only when we began developing the “Praise for the War Achievements” section did I allow them to fully let their bodies dance. One dancer said: “All the movement that had been suppressed for years suddenly exploded during that section. What came out wasn’t the habitual technique from my training — it came directly from the sound. It felt incredible.”

Time matters. Waiting allows dancers to discover the transformation themselves — and that change is far more genuine than anything I could tell them.

CNTRFLD. Identity on Stage

Your choreography often touches on Indigenous identity — and sometimes sexuality — in ways that feel both intimate and brave. How do you create a rehearsal environment where your dancers feel free to express these personal and sometimes vulnerable stories?

BDC. I suppose it’s trust.

When we first founded the company, we rented a small flat and lived together — six dancers who had moved from other places. Life and work were deeply intertwined. We built a strong sense of camaraderie. As Indigenous people, we also naturally do everything together: eight hours of rehearsal, meals together, days off together. For the first five years, this was our life. We shared everything — joy, frustration, tears.

So, when it came to creation, we could catch each other instinctively. Improvisation developed quickly because of this trust. But when the dancers had to present these intimate stories to an audience, it became very raw, even painful. I act as the final gatekeeper. I give them the right to choose — once they’re on stage, they can return to themselves. They decide whether to reveal or to turn away. This is what built the company’s semi-improvised performance style, strong instincts, and deep trust in one another.