Series
Volume 19
Dance and Performance Studies
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Sliding Worlds
Reflections on the Taipei Dance Circle
Yu-Chun Chen
194 pages, 20 ills., bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-80758-062-9 $120.00/£92.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (November 2026)
eISBN 978-1-80758-065-0 eBook Not Yet Published
Description
Famous for its ‘Modern Dance on Baby Oil’, the Taipei Dance Circle (1984–2019) changed how we think about movements. This book captures a rare behind-the-scenes look in dance ethnography at the group's final experimental years (2014-2017) after losing their founder, Shaw-Lu Liu. During this chaotic but creative and liminal phase, the author compares Shaw-Lu Liu’s and Cheng-Chieh Yu’s choreographic methodologies through thirteen months of fieldwork, positioning divergent paths in modern / postmodern dance. Bridging anthropology and dance studies, this book takes you deep into the slippery and creative world of movements, substance, objects, imagination and aesthetics.
Yu-Chun Chen is an independent researcher at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying). Some of her journal publications include ‘To the end of a dance troupe: On and Off the stage of Floating Horizons’, ‘Performances as Rituals’ and ‘To Move ‘the Technologies of the Self’: the Embodiment of Somaesthetics in Dance Improvisation’, published in Taipei Theatre Journal, Introducing Anthropology and Taiwan Dance Research Journal.

