BDC 沒有害怕太陽和下雨 攝影 高信宗 (25) (1) BDC 沒有害怕太陽和下雨 攝影 高信宗 (25) (1)
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Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain
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Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain

"Using only the language of body and movement, the Bulareyaung Dance Company brilliantly conveys the many moods of the sea, and allows us to comprehend the turbulence deep underneath."
Artistic Credit
Choreographer | Bulareyaung Pagarlava
Cultural Consultant | Suming Rupi
Costume Consultant | Keith Lin Bing-hao
Lighting Design | Lee Chien-chang
Projection Design | Hsu Yi-chun
Stage Design | Su Chun-hsueh
Guitar Music & Player | Sakinu A-hui
 
Commissioned by National Theater & Concert Hall, Taipei
Have you become what you aspired to be? — Bulareyaung Pagarlava

After five years of planning and two years of development, Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain, the newest and the seventh production by the Bulareyaung Dance Company since its founding in Taitung in 2015, has finally come into being. Following Luna, which won the 2019 Taishin Arts Award Grand Prize, the work is also based on tribal fieldwork, this time on Pakarongay, an Amis training system for youngsters to undergo in order to be officially recognized as adults. As a celebration piece for the 5th anniversary of the Company, Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain is dedicated to those who are in need of strength during personal development, as it delves into the introspective world of the dancers as they plod along the path of self-growth and renewal.

About the work

Choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava talking about Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain
 

I will share a story with you. In 2015, I went back to Taitung and founded the Bulareyaung Dance Company. Before that, I hadn’t had the slightest idea what a tribal festival was. Every summer, our dancers would ask for a leave of absence, saying that they need to return to their tribal village to participate in the festival. I also started to visit neighboring villages. I would sit in a corner, observing everything going on around me, just like a tourist.

In 2015, I saw a group of adolescents in the A'tolan tribe of Amis. They were all wearing gym shorts and blue tops with Pakarongay printed on them. Whenever someone hollered, “Pakarongay!”, they would scurry to perform all kinds of labor. When people became exhausted from the festival, another voice yelled, “Pakarongay! Come and dance for faki and fayi!” (Note: Faki and Fayi mean elderly males and females in Amis, respectively.) I was curious about these kids. What in the world were they doing?

I asked the elders, “What is the training of pakarongay exactly?” The elders said there is no such thing as training in the past, “All year round, all youngsters twelve and above are called pakarongay before they enter kaput, an official age set.” Pakarongay literally means a service person or someone who takes orders. Since 2017, our dancers have been learning with their kaput in the Falangaw tribe of Amis. In 2018, after obtaining consent from the kaput management team from the A‘tolan tribe, two dancers from the Company participated in the training of pakarongay that lasted four days and three nights. During the day, they went up to the mountains to learn cultural skills, such as setting up traps and getting to know the plants. In the afternoon, they came back to the seashore to learn skills at sea. At night, they caught freshwater shrimps and green turbans. A whole day labor always began and ended with dancing and singing with their tribal brothers hand-in-hand.

Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain, a piece created to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Company, will be performed in the National Theater in April 2020. The performance was originally scheduled to be last year but was unfortunately postponed due to the pandemic. In February, I received a call from a kaput leader of the A'tolan tribe. He told me that the pakarongay that have received training for the past five years were about to be promoted and christened. This was the only part of the ritual that I did not get to see. When the parents of the pakarongay clothed them with traditional costumes, and the pakarongay performed a guard dance in return, I was moved to tears. Everything is as it is meant to be.

The growth of the Company is like the pakarongay. We are always exploring what we want to be. I asked Suming Rupi, our Amis culture consultant for the piece, who is also from the A'tolan tribe, “For the pakarongay that you have trained, what did you want to train them into?” He did not have an answer. So this is really a deep question. Since we first started to rehearse for Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain in 2019, dancers have probably already run the distance equivalent to a round trip from Taitung to Taipei. Would this training make them stronger? Amis dancers from the troupe had refused to cooperate. They did not believe in this type of training, claiming that there should be something that is more suitable.  But what is more suitable?

As a creator and an observer, I have often been asked by dancers since the founding of the Company, “Why do we have to go through all this? We are already adults!” I don’t know if Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain could answer this question properly. This piece has faced difficulties arising from cultural differences, but has also brought me back to one of my childhood wishes: “Have you become what you wanted to be?” This is a lesson that takes a lifetime to learn, and I would like to share it with you.

Visited Venues

2021/4/23-25 Cloud Gate Theater, New Taipei City, Taiwan
2021/10/16-17 National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying), Kaohsiung, Taiwan
2022/1/15 Taitung Art and Culture Center, Taitung, Taiwan