15

Created in 2023

Choreography | Tao Ye

Music|Xiao He

Lightning Design | Ellen Ruge,Tao Ye

Costume Design | DNTY

Duration|23 min

Premiere | 21 Sep 2023, Amare Den Haag, NL

Co-commission | Nederlands Dans Theater 1

In August 2023, choreographer Tao Ye was invited by the Netherlands Dance Theatre (NDT) to create a new work '15' for 15 dancers from the company's first ensemble. This marked the first collaboration between the digital series and a European dance company. Tao Ye created three highly challenging dance sections for the NDT dancers using a triangular formation, progressively developing the piece through movement concepts of group drifting, dynamic flowing, and spatial shuttling.

Tao Ye believes that triangles possess characteristics of stability, structure, and numerology. This creation combines the imaginative space of movement from both Eastern and Western perspectives, allowing free expression and logic to coexist. It attempts to explore a new body language based on Tao's circular movement system.

The work focuses on the variation and richness of rhythm, from which Tao Ye developed three live physical soundscapes: tapping, falling, and vocalization. Combined with the dancers' movements of twisting, turning, bending, and folding, the work conveys profound experiences of relaxation and hardness, consumption and regeneration, concentration and meditation.