Tag: TAO Dance Theater

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TAO Dance Theater – 16 & 17

  • July 25th – 26th, 2025 Biennale Danza, Venice
  • August 9th, 2025 ImPulsTanz, Vienna
  • October 12th – 13th, 2025 Dialog Festival, Wrocław
  • October 16th – 17th, 2025 SPAF, Seoul
  • March 4th, 2026 Amare, The Hague
  • March 7th, 2026  International Theater Amsterdam, Amsterdam
  • March 10th, 2026 schrit_tmacher Festival, Heerlen
  • March 14th, 2026 Stadsschouwburg Utrecht, Utrecht
  • March 17th, 2026 SPOT Groningen, Groningen

70 minutes

The Latest Chapters of Numerical Series

© Fan Xi

This double bill from the TAO Dance Theater’s Numerical Series begins with a celebration of the dragon, a bringer of good look in China. Inspired by the Chinese dragon dance Loong, sixteen black-clad dancers from Beijing swirl through colourful light in the first piece, 16. And the seventeen bodies in 17, wearing black and white, activate their voices along with their movements, thereby turning themselves into a “mobile sound system”. With his minimalist yet virtuoso dance style, choreographer Tao Ye has found a path between tradition and futurism that brings the body and the mind into harmony.

TAO Dance Theatre’s choreographic Series of Numbers began in 2008 and has been invited onto the most important stages of the world, from the Lincoln Center Art Festival of New York to Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, as well as the Sydney Opera House and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. Its minimalist aesthetic further codified Tao Ye and Duan Ni’s method, achieving an exasperated repetition that seeks truth in the body.

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TAO Dance Theater – 13 & 14

October 12th, 2024 Theater Bonn Opera House, Bonn
October 16th-19th, 2024 Théâtre de la Ville, Paris
October 25th-26th, 2024 Teatro Central, Seville
October 30th, 2024 Teatro Ariosto, Reggio Emilia
November 5th-6th, 2024 International Theater Amsterdam, Amsterdam
November 13th, 2024 Le théâtre de Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Nazaire
November 15th-16th, 2024 Théâtre de Cornouaille, Quimper
November 21st, 2024 Le Quartz, Bres
July 30th, 2025 Civitanova Danza, Civitanova Marche
August 6th, 2025 ImPulsTanz, Vienna
75 minutes incl. intermission

Winners of Silver Lion, BIENNALE DANZA 2023

© Duan Ni

TAO Dance Theater is a Chinese dance company based in Beijing. Founded in 2008 by the choreographers Tao Ye, Duan Ni and by the producer Wang Hao, the company has an innovative approach to movement, a body technique known as “Circular Movement System”. At its roots is the idea of pure dance, achieved through the “ritualistic repetition of the body’s natural movements”, invoking the spectators’ capacity to concentrate on the essential nature of the repeated gesture, devoid of any ornament.

TAO Dance Theatre’s choreographic Series of Numbers began in 2008 and has been invited onto the most important stages of the world, from the Lincoln Center Art Festival of New York to Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, as well as the Sydney Opera House and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. Its minimalist aesthetic further codified Tao Ye and Duan Ni’s method, achieving an exasperated repetition that seeks truth in the body.

13 and 14 explore different themes, respectively involving 13 and 14 dancers on stage following the habitual pattern of the series. 13 develops along a three-part scheme, exploring three different ways that bodies relate: in the solo, the duet, the ensemble. Starting from the unity of the ensemble, the choreographer progressively fragments the dancers into different formations between ralenti and sudden accelerations, reflecting the “complexity of the physical world, where one is continuously colliding, coming together and apart, falling and bouncing back” within a choreographic form that is both rigorous and open.

A study of rhythm, 14 relies on rapid changes of movement that bring out the full range of possibilities between stasis and movement. As the result of a complex dynamism, 14 takes the vocabulary of the “Circular Movement System” to the extreme: Points, lines and planes that intersect in space bring the work back to pure movement, deploying the full range of possibilities”.

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TAO Dance Theater 2 -The World of Movements

September 3 – October 1, 2024 By Art Matters, Hangzhou
during exhibition opening hours (6 hours/day)

Tao Ye’s First Immersive Dance Project

© TAO Dance Theater

Drawing inspiration from a wildlife documentary series he watched as a child, Tao Ye observes striking parallels between the intricate movements of animals in nature and the vast repertoire of human motion. Co-curated with Fan Xi, The World of Movements – When Body Language Comes Alive showcases for the first time the TAO Dance Theater 2 in the gallery of Renzo Piano-designed contemporary art museum By Art Matters in Hangzhou, China.

The exhibition features more than 20 dancers from diverse backgrounds performing in a setting of everyday furnishings, where they improvise continuously. Visitors can immerse themselves, either passively or actively, creating their own journey that interweaves familiarity with imagination, reconsidering how human bodies form connections.