Other Works
Rustling, Whirring
Choreography | Bulareyaung Pagarlava
Cultural Consultant & Guest Artist | Inka Mbing
Original Stage Design & Stage Consultant | Austin Mang-Chao Wang
Lighting Design | Lee Chien-chang
Projection Design | Hsu Yi-chun
Music Design |Hong Tzu-long
Commissioned by Taipei Performing Arts Center
Lingering in the ears are the whispers of the loom, which weaves the warp and weft of life like tireless footsteps of the Atayals, who walk into the forest, one step at a time, to weave their own road of migration.
Weaving is the soul of Atayal culture. The rustling and whirring of the loom is like a summoning call to the villagers. As long as you know how to walk and weave, you know who you are.
Choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava walked into the tribal forest of the Atayal with his dancers to allow the sound of the loom to guide them home from the mist. Grounded in traditional Atayal music and dance, Rustling, Whirring went deep into the mountains to search for the gait of migration, stripping away the excessives, leaving only the purest form of kinetics.
Through simple body motions, Rustling, Whirring invites the audience to enjoy the crisp percussion strikes and pristine ballad voices to retrace the migration path of life.
Rustling, Whirring -- Eyes born for the loom is observing the present
by Jing Liao
The voice of an elder is calling from the mist-shrouded mountains. Her teachings are like dense threads of warp and weft stretched across the mountains and rivers, and between heaven and earth, meticulously woven into a path that one would never forget once he hears about it. This is what she said, “My child, what is on your mind? Open your eyes. What do you see? Come back home, back to the source of the river where the water is clear. Look at the verdant mountain range. This is where your roots lie..."
Ancient teachings: Where songs are
Rustling, Whirring opens with Lumhuw, or ancient teachings in the Atayal language, sung by Inka Mbing, who describes herself as an old person from the mountains calling children back. “Lumhuw means passing through. It is also an Atayal song, in which we send our sincere regards to the other person after passing them through our heart and mind. To pass through something is also like weaving, isn’t it?” Inka said softly, with a full smile on her face, while accurately pointing out a connection between the two essentials in the Atayal culture, ancient teachings and weaving. Both give a similar impression of being repetitive and mundane, yet scrupulous and contemplative. “It is as if we are walking on a mountainous path, as if we are walking on its body,” said choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava.
The dancers went to Jianshi Township in Hsinchu County during the time when Rustling, Whirring was being developed. As always, they did not have any presumptions, but just prepared themselves to absorb everything. It turned out that even the surroundings left a deep impression on them. “It was cold, damn cold,” said Bulareyaugn laughingly. The dancers truly felt the physical impact of the crisp, cold mountainous air, the clouds hovering above their head, the panoramic view, and the bumpiness of the precipitous roads. However, what they had originally looked forward to the most before the trip was to learn Atayal songs. Surprisingly, after chatting with the elders, they found out there really was no song.
The elders jokingly said that they have to focus on their steps and quietly listen to the calls of the wild beasts when they are in the steep mountainous forests. Therefore, it is impossible for them to sing songs with complex melodies and rhythms. The Atayal people are generally soft speakers, perhaps also for the same reason. It is thus their surroundings that have molded their songless culture. In the end, a song was finally found. It is the melody of ancient Atayal teachings. “This is very intriguing. Everyone is singing the same tune, but the lyrics are all different.” In other words, they are all Lumhuw, or ancient teachings. The Atayal people use the simple melody to share their feelings and create dialogues. Important messages are passed on by singing to the tune. As a result, the content of the lyrics would change depending on what the singer thinks and the circumstances he is in. Ancient teachings are a song, but they are also far more than a song.
A guide guarding the living source
On hearing Inka’s songs, Bulareyaung immediately bought all the albums by Feijuyuenbao Synectics, the aboriginal band that Inka helped found. He said that Inka’s voice is powerful and penetrating. It is something you would always remember once you hear it. Therefore, when the Atayal-themed Rustling, Whirring was being created, Bulareyaung decided to collaborate with Inka without a second thought. “I had simply wanted to let her sing a few songs from the albums so that her voice could continue to be heard.” Nevertheless, after he learned Inka’s story of singing the ancient Atayal teachings, Bulareyaung began to contemplate better possibilities.
Traditionally, the ancient teachings of Atayal could only be sung by male tribal elders. Inka once heard from one of the teachings that the origin of the Atayal tribe is a boulder in the tribal village of Masitoban in Ren'ai Township, Nantou County in central Taiwan. She wept as she listened to the old tune, and somehow, she became determined to find that rock. When she finally found it and stepped on it, she heard a whisper in her ear, “My child, you have finally come back home.” “It was at that moment that I knew I became the ancestor and the leader of Atayal. I told Him that if there is something He wants to do, just use my body.”
Inka cried out. She said the cry was out of her life-long ignorance of her self-identity, and the loss of the Atayal tribe due to displacement during colonization. Later, Inka decided to break away from traditional gender restrictions and sing the ancient teachings so that the tribal root can become a living source and all that come back can find their way home.
Bulareyaung hoped that Rustling, Whirring is also a piece that allows traditions to live on under Inka’s care and guidance.
The original plan was to have Inka sing specific songs in certain sections of the piece. However, during rehearsals, the piece gradually morphed into a river and took on a life of its own. Inka started to watch the dancers and sing according to their moves. It was as if her voice was dancing together with the dancers. Bulareyaung was amazed at how Inka developed the song. “When she sings, oftentimes you feel that she is giving out a message. Her voice renders power to the dancers.”
The dancers’ bodies and Inka’s voice together create a series of impromptus on stage, just like the ancient teachings, which follow the same melody, but give different loving admonitions every time. “Inka’s singing watches the dancers’ footsteps, and leads us towards the next mountaintop. Every word she sings serves as guidance.“
Every present moment Lokoh!
In Rustling, Whirring, there is an extended section in which all dancers walk repetitively. They form a single file like a long thread and tread on the floor covered with white talc powder, creating a rhombus pattern. The dancers change their posture along the way, sometimes tiptoeing, as if they are crossing a bluff, and other times crouching down, as though they are walking through a jungle. They would also half squat and pretend to lift items, like hunters crossing a river carrying their game. They keep on walking back and forth, while at the same time calling out to each other, “Lokoh!”, which is a greeting as well as a way to cheer someone up in the Atayal language.
Dancers felt impatient about the repetitive fatiguing act, and Bulareyaung was fully aware of it. “They became tired and upset. They grumbled about why they had to do the same thing everyday.” However, the alternation between patience and impatience is exactly what Bulareyaung has learned from his fieldtrip. As he walked along the mountain trails, he saw the ups and downs of the lofty mountains, which seemed majestic and utterly unreachable. However, when he kept a firm and steady pace, day in and day out, he gradually trod out a path. Bulareyaung suspected that it is likely the same for all of us. “Everyday, one keeps doing the same routines. You don’t see him as trying to find a way out. However, his every step allows the road to wind in a new direction.”
“We used to strive hard to find a way out. Who am I? Where did I come from? But the Atayal culture makes us reconsider the possibility that we might have already been creating a new path all along as we are walking right now.” This is like the emphasis on the present moment in the ancient teachings, and the repetitive work on a loom. Inka once mentioned to Bulareyaung during rehearsal, “Perhaps we don’t need to sing the traditional songs?” What she meant was that she is Atayal and she sings ancient teachings, which are true embodiments of the firmly grounded traditions. It is Atayal regardless of whether she sings a traditional tune or not. It will always be the present Atayal.
“For me, Rustling, Whirring is to allow novel events to happen at unexpected moments in one’s everyday monotony, creating new opportunities in life.” Bulareyaung mentioned that dancers have to accumulate experiences from numerous hours of practice before they could boldly forgo those experiences and actually go on stage to perform for an hour. The audience gets to view all the elements together, sounds, music, images, dancers, and the singer. All of them are created through improvisation, and each time on stage is uniquely different. Sensing the dancers’ emotional flow in the impromptu, Inka’s singing resonates with her feelings as projection and music echo along. All of a sudden, the stage comes alive, like a breathing loom weaving out different totem designs in life for each performance.
“We created together with the audience a path that seems to be both known and unknown. Rustling, Whirring is such a piece.” Towards the end of the performance, the rhombus pattern stepped out by the dancers in the opening scene becomes blurry, but all the audience have clearly seen the eyes of Atayal.