Celebrity Commentary
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“ Tao Ye is a genius artist and Duan Ni, a genius dancer. Through TAO Dance Theater’s creations you can perceive the thriving pulse of culture. In an era of entertainment where dance loses its dignity and creativity nears extinction, their dances make us return to serious discussion, make us recognize and salute true creativity.”Xiang JingBeijing, Sculptor
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“ Tao Ye’s dance works belong to the 21st century. They amaze and provoke deeper reflection. In my dreams I can create dance works like these, yet at the same time I know that I am not capable.”Lin Huai MinTaipei, Founder and Artistic Director of Cloud Gate
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“ TAO Dance Theater has a unique artistic direction, and a powerful expression of deep excavation of the limits of the body’s movement possibilities. It is both individual yet universal; creative and expressive. We all anticipate the day China has even more genuine artists like them.”Shen WeiNew York, Artistic Director of Shen Wei Dance Arts
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“There is no word like “shocking” could express the feelings of my first experience watching TAO Dance Theater. Their body languages are unique, new, international, vanguard but yet friendly ! ”Hong HuangCEO of China Interactive Media Group, Media Personality
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“I truly enjoyed TAO Dance Theater’s performance, where ‘less is more.’ The minimalist set and music focuses all attention on the power of the body’s rhythm itself. Flowing bursts of energy, drawing impossible curves, approaching true Eastern Zen and enlightenment. I raise my glass to you!”Yang LanBeijing, TV Hostess and Media Personality
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“ In my limited experience of modern dance, TAO Dance Theater is a rare gem in the world of Chinese dance. They have an independent spirit, they have not used any gimmicks of Eastern culture, but rather discovered and developed their own intrinsic aesthetic language, achieving outstanding performances through a certain cohesive integrity. This inherent quiet and universal egalitarianism is only possible through true dialogue of people with different cultural backgrounds.”Zhu ZheqinGuangzhou, Musician and Composer
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“Bringing forward a futuristic perspective which cannot be ignored, a collective physical vocabulary, Chinese artistic conception, thought made form, all this in one is embodied by the break through that is TAO Dance Theater; with a brand new modern dance vocabulary, pursuing the potential of the body’s ability and the possibilities of communication. They make the body become the materials of the dance; movement is the vehicle of expression. TAO Dance Theater’s idea of dance transcends past and future, exceeding all national boundaries. Their live performances bring an amazing sense of shock. Lead dancers Tao Ye and Duan Ni have gifts beyond humanity, possessing infinite abilities of physical expression and interpretation, leaving people in awe and inspiration. Their set design, music, costumes, and space all show a level of taste and imagination that nears perfection, from every side expressing a new generation of Chinese dance that reaches international levels.”Zhai YongmingSichuan, Writer and Poet
Press Commentary
Nästan rening.
TAO Dance Theatres konsekventa helkväll ger en
Välbehövlig dos livskoncentrat.
The two pieces on its program have theatrical force and authority… The athletic control is remarkable… powerful drive, the physicality and momentum…extraordinary and appealing.Mr. Tao has an ability to draw you inside his austere, meditative world; if you go willingly, you realize that the body is a sacred place.
Fuel for the imagination.
They dance in the flowing nature of courage. This is full of challenging work, highlights the Chinese director unique individual vocabulary.
Mind-pummelling visual rigour such as this, combined with faultless execution, has fast-tracked the minimalist dance of Tao Ye’s company on to the world stage. Abstract moves evoke a hallucinogenic universe.
It is easy to see why the choreographer and co founder Tao Ye has captured attention as a radical new presence on the country's burgeoning contemporary dance scene.The young Chinese choreographer’s dances possess an almost monastic rigour.
Out of this world.
Extraoridinary performance, choreographed with the pinpoint accuracy of a precision engineer by the company’s founder Tao Ye.
Tao Ye’s work is both high concept and thrillingly simple,
and proves Tao an outstanding new voice in international dance.
TAO Dance Theatre pays the ultimate tribute to the human body.
With TAO’s diptych full of choreographic jewels, Julidans has a new highlight… this time of the more abstract kind.
A heart-stopping moment of wonder and discovery.
Definitely on the cutting edge.
Absolutely amazing ... An extraordinary experience.
A rigorous, mesmerizing tour-de-force.
A bold approach…opening new frontiers in dance.
An unqualified triumph.
TAO ... played havoc with preconceived notions of dance.
Cuttingedge contemporary dance from China.
Poetic and immersive.
The young Chinese choreographer creates pure dance that sets the spirit free.
A rigour approaching the sacred.
Sustained and mesmerically beautiful. Like a door into an alternate reality.
As a member of the audience one needs not to memorize too many minute details from TAO Dance Theater’s performances, nor is one required to come to terms with clear definitions and labels. One needs only to feel the special aspiration and world-view that radiates from their movements. They inspire an “extreme” point of view towards the essence and meaning of objects and events and asks us to reflect on our own state of life. Moreover, it gives us strength to find our own spiritual oasis in this mundane world of restlessness.Tao Ye and his company retains their selfhood in our tumultuous world of restlessness. They convey the energy and the primal essence of life through an expression that never sought to express. In a world where attention comes in short supply, they persistently challenge the limit with a minimalist methodology – the height of life comes to be experienced as their fortitude is cultivated in simple repetitions.
However spontaneous they may appear to be, they are full of control. Sometimes they dance like marionettes, with god’s hand on the other end of the strings.
As a representative of contemporary Chinese aesthetic in the nongovernmental sector, Tao Dance Theater is increasingly unignorable.
TAO Dance Theater brings forth performances where the identity of “human” is clad in ambiguity : their dance is not engendered by their being human , but by a kind of natural reflection.For those who think in habitual ways, their performances implies a deliberate sense of “revolution”, nonetheless, they retain a precious rationality and a modest profile as they always do.
The possibility of the body is extended to the extreme. It is elaborate, rational and imbued with profound philosophical significance.
Ultra-minimalist, oriental, philosophical, religious. Seemingly all correct, yet seemingly all over-interpreting.
《4》has shocked the audience at the National Center for Performance Arts . For Tao Dance Theater , an art work does not bear meaning in itself, rather, meaning consists solely in the state of being-in-motion. It is not only a dance performance; it has become an act that belongs properly to contemporary art, inlaid with multiple layers of possible interpretation.
If you wonder how Adam and Eve must have danced, it was like this.
Sitting at a Tao Dance Theater performance, rather than to watch, I would say one needs more to gaze, as if onto the dark firmament that encapsulates all space beneath, and high above there are countless glittering stars. As one gazes onward, some kind of consciousness becomes immanent: over yonder where eyesight cannot reach, there is a universe, it is silent, boundless, eternal, and endless.
In a fraction of time, this dance of life – this dance of consciousness – puts itself beyond the fabrics of space and time.TAO Dance Theater’s performances possess a religious cathartic power. The young genius Tao Ye, with his self-confidence and artistic maturity, is undoubtedly one of the very best choreographers in China today.
The moment they begin to move, the entire space transforms.
Their bodies surprise and amaze the audience, allowing
their imaginations to fly and giving a whole new
understanding of the potential of the body.
Talking with the art director of the company, Tao Ye, one can tell that this youngster has extraordinary talents and a lucid mind. His preoccupation with dance is beyond any ordinary scope – it is so extreme that, in a sense, it is perverted.
Tao Ye is emerging rapidly as a force to be reckoned with, as well as the most exciting name in modern dance.
An emerging dance group at the vanguard, said to be “leading the development of Chinese modern dance onto a greater track” — TAO Dance Theater.
They are establishing their own views on body and aesthetics. In a wise gesture as one that befits a philosopher, they raise the question on the existence of “human beings” to a metaphysical level.The ideals of body movements are discussed as if the laws of universe are in question. Parts and whole are interdependent, neither one is dispensable.
A“survivor” in our tough, materialistic age.