Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalist 

TAI Body Theatre’s foot scripts reflect contemporary youth’s encounters with environmental challenges as well as collective migratory and diasporic experiences. It is composed through the collaborative body, engaging in affirmative, sensibility-oriented thinking and land philosophy. Starting with the relationship between the indigenous language and the body, it explores sonic and spatiotemporal dialectics and imaginations rooted in historical narratives. The dancers’ feet, like those of beasts, stamp and create landscape changes and layered temporalities, forming an epic of mountains and forests that convey memories of ancestral spirits and of returning to nature, along with the sorrows therein. Within the consoling power of music and dance, they weave hope and the regenerative forces of life. With heartfelt spiritual depth, this work confronts the challenge of disappearance through dynamic tensions and channels the sounds of all beings and past existences into our bodies, achieving the return of the impossible. (Commentator / CHOW Ling-Chih)

Artwork Introduction  

qaqay draws from the Truku words “qaqay” for “foot” and “papak,” an onomatopoeia meaning “feet on water” and also referring to animal paws. The title, therefore, signifies the walking of all living beings and extends to an exploration of interactions between humans and the natural environment. This work uses “foot-scripts” to illustrate the primal shape of animal paws, tracing back to the Truku myth of the fallen giant, whose body became mountains and whose feet turned into islands. On the increasingly forgotten land, dancers transform into animal paws with “foot-scripts,” reimagining the giant’s form through stomping rhythms and bodily movement. 

About the Artist 

Watan Tusi is the founder and artistic director of TAI Body Theatre and the former leader of the Formosa Aboriginal Song and Dance Troupe. In 1997, after attending a performance by the troupe, he was deeply moved by the ancient songs and dances, which led him to immerse himself in traditional indigenous music and dance. During his tenure with the troupe, he conducted several tribal field surveys, organized training programs for indigenous music and dance talent, and performed both domestically and internationally. 

TAI Body Theatre, founded by Truku artist Watan Tusi in 2013, began in a tin-sheeted house under Hualien’s Nongbing Bridge, where they experimented with indigenous body vocabulary. “TAI” comes from the Truku language, meaning “to see,” symbolizing their gaze and reflection on traditional culture as well as their exploration of new possibilities for music and dance beyond ritual and tourism. They use traditional ritual music and dance as a foundation for training, incorporating the essence of “tai” and creating body movements from “foot-scripts,” the physical method they have developed.

Production Team

Artistic Director & Choreographer｜Watan Tusi

Performers｜Piya Talaliman, Lrimilrimi Kupangasane, Qaulai Tjivuljavus, Ising Suaiyung, Ansyang Makakazuwan

Producer｜Lin Chihyu

Executive Producer｜apu’u yakumangana

Apprentice Dancers｜yaway puna, Kai Naubana, Kayting

Visual Design｜apu’u yakumangana

Photography｜Lin Yen Shau

Cinematography｜Mumu Kao

Stage Sound & Engineering｜Cheng Dian Enterprise