Founded in 1993, Ku & Dancers is the only professional dance company devoting itself to the development and exploration of improvisation works in Taiwan.
Ku & Dancers was founded in Taiwan in 1993 by dancer, choreographer, teacher Ming-Shen Ku. The company had its debut performance the same year in the National Theater in Taipei. Ku & Dancers is best known as the only professional dance company devoted to the development and exploration of improvisational performance in Taiwan. The practice of improvisation and contact improvisation forms the company’s basic training. Many internationally renowned improvisers have been invited to participate in the performances and the workshops hosted by the company, including Steve Paxton, Chris Aiken, Kirstie Simson, etc.
The company is also known for its collaboration with artists of various disciplines, such as interactive video programmer/ designer Hsin-Chien Huang, computer animation director Yau Chen, UK-based video artist Thomas Gray, Belgian composer/musician Pieter Thys, Fashion designer Yen-Lin Hsu, etc. Besides regularly performing in Taiwan, Ku & Dancers tours extensively throughout Asia, Europe, USA and Australia.
In 2010, Decode 2010, a 70-minute-long improvisation performance that has no structure except for two “conditions” received fervent response from the audience and was seen as a landmark piece in the nearly 2 decades of the company’s development. Following that year, the company organized the first international improvisation dance festival in Taiwan, i·dance Taipei 2011, a nine days’ festival consisting thirteen events featuring more than thirty artists of eleven nationalities. The company’s latest production, Voltar, staged in a hundred year old house in Daxi, Taoyuan, is a combination of dance, puppetry, 3D projection and live music, marking the twentieth anniversary of Ku & Dancers.
