Bulareyaung Dance CompanyLIMA Five series: Nasi-LIife/Premiere of a life documentary

Home is both the beginning and the end of a journey for a wandering soul.  

When KUO Chun-ming, Bulareyaung’s Chinese name, was still printed on his ID, he used to be in constant self-denial, doing everything he could to shy away from his aboriginal identity due to his eyebrow-raising looks and accent. 

As there is no retroflexion in Paiwanese, Bulareyaung secretly practiced hard on his retroflex sounds in Mandarin, the official language of Taiwan, and refrained from talking to people. One time in college, when he was trying to say something, others even remarked with surprise, “I had always thought he was dumb!” It was this Bulareyaung that started to contemplate on “Who am I? Where am I from?” for the first time in his life when he self-explored through choreography in 1995. He decided to revert back to his aboriginal name, but what really spurred him on to return home was an incident that happened on stage in New York.   

Using time to carve out of the body dances and songs like no other.

The journey towards home is an approach to creating works. However, the range of possibilities has now been expanded, and Bulareyaung needs more time to learn and ponder over the constants and variables of man in time. Dancing has already led him to find his own name, and now he needs to find his hometown. “I could say that I am a qaciljay (“boulder on the mountain slope” in Paiwanese), using time to carve out of the body dances and songs like no other.” He used to panic over his loss of identity, but Senayan, a singer from the Puyuma tribe, encouraged him as someone who has been through this before, “Bulareyaung, returning home is neither a fast nor a straightforward lane.” Indeed, returning home is not fast at all. Although it has already been five years, he still needs more time to live and venture in order to flourish and bloom. 

The documented years

On a work scene for a particular performance project, a photography team had a chance to see the work of the troupe. Since then, they started to act like little fans, documenting in detail the Bulareyaung Dance Company they had in mind through the lens of a camera. The years of collaboration have led to an extensive partnership with the company, and they have now become the most preferred camera team for all the performances of the company. Time flies and almost four years have glided by since then. The photography team recorded every moment of the troupe, from tribal performance tours, to world premieres, to interviews, to even funny behind-the-scenes clips of the troupe offstage.    

On their fifth anniversary in 2020, the troupe would like to invite all those who love and have supported them to learn more about their growth path, and retrace the footsteps of  Pagarlava and his dancers to the time when they first decided to “return home to dance”. 
 

LIMA - Bulareyaung Dance Company 5-Year Special

• A Brew to Share｜A hands-on workshop for experiencing aboriginal culture
• Selected pieces by the Bulareyaung Dance Company｜A three-day performance of six dance pieces to sing the best songs of life