Liu Feng-shueh: A Modern Classic

It is twenty days before the first performance. "Tsao Pi and Chen Mi" has completed 10 rehearsals, right on schedule. Liu, seated off to the side of the rehearsal stage, still sits straight upright despite being more than seven decades old, and her silver-white hair is combed back behind her head--every hair in place. During a scene change, she leans over and says softly to a young dancer from the Pei An Middle School, "If you don't mind, please bring that chair to the center of the stage." Then she sits back up in her chair and is absorbed in watching the dance. This is the "Teacher Liu" of whom people say "she looks stern, but if you are close to her she is very warmhearted."

The battle scene in the first act of "Tsao Pi and Chen Mi" is majestic. It was selected as one of the performances of national arts to celebrate the inauguration of the president and vice-president.

The Goddess of the Lo River, II

When you talk dance with Liu, time is expressed in decades. Twenty years ago she established the Neo-Classic Dance Company. Their initial production was "The Goddess of the Lo River," based on the love story involving the Tsao brothers--contenders for the imperial throne--and the beauty Chen Mi. At that time Liu did the choreography, while Wang Cheng-ping arranged the traditional Chinese music. They produced an 18-minute piece for three dancers. The role of Tsao Chih was played by Luo Man-fei, now chairwoman of the Department of Dance at the National Taiwan Academy of the Arts.

At that time, though satisfied with the musical side, Liu worried that the choreography was not good enough, and just days before the performance she was still thinking of canceling. But the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall theater had already sold out, so she had little choice but to go on. That performance in fact received favorable reviews, but she always felt some sense of regret. Now, twenty years later, "a chance to do it better" arrived when she and Wang were invited to restage the show for the Taipei Municipal Festival of the Arts.

Both of them were very serious about this restaging. They began exchanging ideas as early as half a year ago, wrote them out, and "one by one these became transformed into the notation for music, dance, and costumes." This time they wanted to do more than express a beautiful love story. They expanded it into an 80-minute production with four scenes, involving more than 30 dancers, with Wang conducting the Taipei Municipal Chinese Classical Orchestra.

At the start of the drama, the Tsao brothers are fighting shoulder-to-shoulder. Horns, suona, and huchin are used to express the sounds of men and horses in battle. The dance steps include many actions adapted from Chinese martial arts. Although the scene is a busy, action-filled one, it creates a desolate ambience that sets the stage for the future clash between the brothers.

Chen Mi appears in the second scene. Waiting for Tsao Pi to return from battle, she begins to dance in the loneliness of the women's palace. The grey-dressed palace ladies at her side become the expressions of her emotions--sometimes loneliness, sometimes anxiety and fear. The third scene is the busiest in the production. The stage is divided into front and rear sections. On the front part is the court where high officials engage in a struggle for power. Behind them are the people. Off to one side are "wild animals" (costumed dancers); on the other are the pounding drums of the U Theater. The vitality they express provides a startling contrast with official court life.

Chen Mi and Tsao Chih engage in a romantic dance, while Tsao Pi fumes in the background. This is one of the high points of the performance.

The dance of life

The final scene is a combination of reality and imagination. In his memories, Tsao Chih is dancing gracefully with Chen Mi. The music and the dance are both lovely, but the romanticism is different from that in a typical Western duet. "Westerners are more passionate. In a ballet there would be a lot of lifts, and in modern dance the two might even roll across the floor in each other's arms. But Chinese are more restrained, and even in folk dance, rarely are duets so intimate," she says. Pausing, then laughing, as if to explain that Chinese people also have occasions for taking each other in their arms, she adds, "Of course, our parents lifted us up when we were small so we could see the lanterns on holidays." So her choreography for this part is not without some lifts. But most of the time she has Tsao Chih and Chen Mi doing identical, parallel movements, to illustrate their emotional harmony and togetherness.

In the end Tsao Pi appears. Behind him Tsao Chih and Chen Mi continue their dance. The steps that they are doing are the same as those done by Tsao Pi and Chen Mi in the second act, but whereas in that act those two seemed cool and distant, there are clearly strong feelings between Tsao Chih and Chen Mi. The tension in the relationship among the three reaches its peak at this point. At the end of the drama, Chen Mi is ordered by Tsao Pi to commit suicide, and, carrying a white silk scarf (to hang herself), moves to the raised platform at the back of the stage. Tsao Pi, seated in the imperial throne, has won power, but lost affection, and he is startled to see that his ministers all have their backs to him. Meanwhile, Tsao Chih paces back and forth across the front of the stage. . . .

Some in the audience have been deeply moved by the "cool and distant" style of the whole performance. Others feel that the characters are not true to their historical counterparts. For example, though Tsao Pi was a literatus, throughout the performance his character wears martial attire. Liu Feng-shueh says that she never intended to do a realistic historical portrayal. Rather, her intention was to use the themes of power and love in the tragedy to dissect human nature and explore the emotional worlds of the main characters. "History often repeats itself, which to me is a pity. I have looked through the dynastic histories to see how many people of talent have been culturally sacrificed. I see human nature through the past, and also want to use the creative process to reassess the meaning of life."

This photo shows Liu and her sister a half century ago. At that time Manchuria was under Japanese control, and the two siblings have the Japanese student hair style of that era. （photo courtesy of Liu Feng-shueh）

The unbearable heaviness of being

Less than a week after the final curtain came down on "Tsao Pi and Chen Mi," the Neo-Classic Dance Company was invited to perform "Carmina Burana" at the Hsinchuang Festival of the Arts. This five-year-old work was adapted by Liu Feng-shueh from a choral composition by the German composer Karl Orff. The story is of a group of 13th century monastic novices dissatisfied with the hypocrisy of the monks. The novices violate their rules and live in drunkenness and debauchery. In the end they return to their original principles and rules of decorum.

The music has stirred the creative impulses of many a choreographer, and Liu also greatly admires it. She feels that it is strongly suited for dance, and her choreography for it is rapidly paced, upbeat, and robust. And she adapted to the material. In the just-completed "Tsao Pi and Chen Mi," the women dancers were clad conservatively in layers of costuming. But in "Carmina Burana," when the plot calls for a female dancer to flirt with a boy, Liu repeatedly insists, "No, no, no. The skirt has to be twirled even higher!"

Whether the subject matter be Chinese or Western in origin, all of Liu's pieces have a consistent trademark: They are very powerful. Kang Lai-hsin, a professor in the Department of Chinese at National Central University, was once a student of Liu's. She feels that Liu's strongest suit is handling space with multiple dancers; she also is very deep, and her choreography transmits a kind of melancholy world-weariness. "She often gives people a feeling of the 'unbearable heaviness of being'!"

"Maybe it's because I am from Manchuria, so I especially like the feeling of coldness and tragic strength. It's just like the Tang poem says: 'A single column of smoke rises out of the desert; the endless river is bounded only by the setting sun'!" says Liu with a sigh.

Liu taught for 30 years in the Department of Physical Education at National Taiwan Normal University and also was chairwoman of the Department of Dance at the National Taiwan Academy of the Arts. She has also served as director of the National Theater and the National Concert Hall. But her great love has always been choreography. She has devoted all her time outside of teaching and administration to creating her own "Chinese modern dance."

As soon as she got to Taiwan, Liu began collecting material on aboriginal dance. The photo shows her on Lanyu, where she did research on the Yami people. Liu feels very saddened that aboriginal culture is disappearing. （photo courtesy of Liu Feng-shueh）

In search of Chinese modern dance

What is "Chinese modern dance"? Is it in the nature and feeling of the movements, or the subject matter and methods used? In recent years, "modern dance from Taiwan" has gained a strong reputation outside the island, and there are many different styles contending in Taiwan's dance community. Some borrow movements from Chinese opera, while others search for characteristic Chinese body language in tai-chi or meditation. Others adapt the techniques of Western modern dance. One individual of the latter type of is Lin Huai-min. His Cloud Gate dance company is built on a foundation of techniques developed by American choreographer Martha Graham, with subject matter drawn from current events in Taiwan or from Chinese classics (like Dream of the Red Chamber or The Legend of the White Snake).

Liu Feng-shueh's "Chinese modern dance" starts from the study of ancient Chinese music and dance. While other dancers were abroad studying foreign techniques, she went overseas several times to collect materials--including hand-written copies of ancient choreographic notation--on ancient Chinese music and dance. She reconstructed and staged many old works. She also created modern dance based on these materials.

Yao Yi-wei observes that Liu's choreography "has many movements adopted from Chinese tradition, such as tai-chi, Peking opera, and martial arts. Yet these are not the least bit ill-fitting but rather give the audience a feeling of familiarity and accessibility." Chang Chung-yuan, a professor in the Department of Dance at the National Taiwan Academy of the Arts, feels that Liu's strongest point is her "Chinese vocabulary." He says, "Her dance space is full of a sense of circularity, and also of limitless extension, and she can create a single atmosphere out of Chinese and Western elements."

Looking back over her creative life, Liu laughs lightly and says, "For so many years I've moved back and forth between East and West; perhaps it's because I grew up under a colonial regime that I am so drawn to Chinese culture."

The costumes for "Tsao Pi and Chen Mi" were designed by Ye Jintian of Hong Kong. The dancers regarded wearing the elaborate outfits as "weight training.".

From Manchuria to Taiwan

Liu hails from Heilongjiang in Manchuria. Her hometown was next to the railroad on the border of China and the former Soviet Union. From early childhood she studied ballet along with Russian 幦igr* children. When she was in her first year of middle school, the Japanese came, and thereafter she received a Japanese colonial education. For college, over objections from her father, Liu tested into the Department of Music and Physical Education at the Changchun Women's University. At that time the dance taught by the Japanese tended toward the continental European style, and especially the dance system of Rudolph von Laban, the father of modern dance.

The ballet that Liu learned as a child, and the modern dance she studied later, both derived from Western culture. Yet, the deeper she got into them, the more she desired to understand her own roots. But it was not until her third year in university, when Manchuria was recovered from Japan, that she could again have contact with Chinese culture. After the civil war broke out, the school moved to Beijing. There Liu met up with Dai Ailian, a teacher who just returned from studying modern dance in the UK and who undertook a field research trip to Tibet and Xinjiang to observe the dances of the peoples of China's border regions.

In 1949 Liu came to Taiwan. At that time her first thought was to have a look at aboriginal dance. This "look" lasted nearly 30 years. Annually she would undertake an in-depth study of a given group, such as the Yami of Orchid Island, the Atayal of Nantou, or the Bunun. She would live with the people, speaking Japanese with the elders (also educated under a Japanese colonial regime) and learning the backgrounds, lifestyles, and dances of every indigenous group. At that time there were still no lightweight video cameras, so she had to lug an 8 mm camera and a large tape recorder with her into the mountains or to the coast as she documented the dance steps of the various indigenous peoples.

Back then, traditional Chinese national dance, strongly promoted by the government, was considered "orthodox." The annual national dance competition was the high point for the dance community, attracting strong participation from society and academe. Then teaching in the Taichung Teachers College, Liu did choreography based on gestures gleaned from traditional Chinese carvings, figurines, and painting. Though one of her works won first prize, she felt undeserving, and gave up the competition after her third year.

"At that time I really wanted my works to have a Chinese character, but I didn't understand the spirit and philosophy of Chinese dance. And I was uncertain how I could incorporate my training in ballet and modern dance, as well as my own ideas, to create a new path for Chinese dance." Thus she experimented and searched for eight years, until 1957, when she hit a turning point.

To allow more people to come in contact with the beauty of ancient Chinese dance, Liu went to Germany to learn the Labanotation system for notating choreography, and transcribed the traditional works she had collected into the international dance language.

A sentence that changed a life

At that time Liu was a lecturer in the Department of Physical Education at National Taiwan Normal University. Department chairman Chiang Liang-kuei strictly required each member of the faculty to produce a paper each month. Once she wrote on "The Possibility of Creating Chinese Modern Dance." After hearing her report, Chiang said gently, "If you want to do some kind of Chinese modern dance thing, you must first understand Chinese tradition." This sentence cleared things up for her.

The Chinese dance tradition is broad and deep. In the Zhou dynasty, the government established official forms of music and dance, and viewed them as an integral part of education. In the Han, the court held ritual performances, and at banquets guest and host would take turns leading in dances.

The Tang dynasty marked the apogee of Chinese dance, which was divided into yayue (court music and dance) for ritual worship and yinyue (banquet music and dance) for social occasions. It was also at that time that the dances of non-Han peoples began to percolate into China's Central Plains. Ritual dance of the Song dynasty was imbued with a Confucian spirit. Beginning in the Yuan dynasty, dance was steadily incorporated into the new operatic format, and pure dance fell into decline.

Sadly, much dance has been lost over time, and today we can only try to figure out the gestures and movements of ancient dance from illustrations, figurines, and Dunhuang cave paintings, or from clues left in poetry and prose. Among the latter are items such as the line of the Tang poet Du Fu: "Watching the students of Madame Gongsun doing the sword dance"; and Bai Juyi's description of Yang Guifei doing the colorful nichang dance of the Tang dynasty.

In 1957 Liu launched her first "ten-year plan." She combed through documents like Yuelu Quanshu (The Complete Book of Music and Rhythm), Beitang Shuchao (Notes of the North Hall), and Gujin Tushu Jicheng (Complete Collection of Graphs and Writings of Ancient and Modern Times) for clues on traditional dance. It was in this way that she discovered "Dance of the People" and the "Eight Rows Dance" (a dance of eight rows with eight imperial officials each that is still performed on Confucius' birthday today).

"The choreography text for 'Dance of the People,' written by Zhu Daiyu of the Ming dynasty, was based on a text of yayue worship ritual dances of the Zhou dynasty. The text was the primer for children beginning to study dance in the Zhou dynasty," explains Liu Feng-shueh. Although the text just shows frozen postures of a passing moment, they reveal the underlying ethical perspective underlying the dance--distinctions between people of youth and age, and of elevated and low status, and the unity of nature and man expressed in the dance space. "But I've felt that there is too much of a moral weight to this text, because Zhu Daiyu had each gesture and position representing some moral element. Thus, for example, the 'up-turn' represented benevolence, while the 'down-turn' represented righteousness."

"The Emperor Destroys the Formations" is a Tang dynasty dance that Liu reconstructed using ancient documents preserved in Japan. This was a celebratory dance staged by the troops of the Tang emperor Li Shimin after a victory in battle. （photo by Chi Pei-lin）

Chinese classics from abroad

Liu was not satisfied with finding the "Dance of the People" text. She knew that much of Tang dynasty dance had been preserved in Japan, so in 1965 she went to that nation, where she studied for a year in the graduate program in dance at Tsukuba University. She also "entered the royal palace," spending seven months in the Court Music Department of Japan's imperial palace hand-copying Tang dynasty dance texts long lost in China itself. She studied with the teachers there and tried some of the dance herself.

In this way she reconstructed long lost dances one after another: "Pa Tou" from the most resplendent period of Tang music and dance; the representative martial dance "King of Lanling," from the Northern Qi; the "Song of the Cuckoo Bird" of the Gaozong reign of the Tang; and "The Emperor Destroys the Formations," which was brought to Japan in the eighth century. The last-named was a dance done by the soldiers of Tang dynasty founder Li Shimin when they were cheering his victory in battle over Liu Wuchou. After ascending the throne, Li ordered that this dance be performed at celebratory occasions.

Liu's trip back in time continued. In 1972 and again in 1984 she went to Korea to study the Confucian dance transmitted to Korea in the Song dynasty, and the court ritual dance--based on Confucian dance--created in Korea in the 15th century. She thus recreated the Song era Confucian martial dance "Greatness Over the Four Seas" and the literati dance "The World Completely Reformed."

Liu explains, "China's court music was the music and dance extolled by Confucianists. Confucius combined rites, music, dance, poetry, and song into a coherent whole, creating a single integrated set of rules for proper ritual and decorum." For instance, there were rules stipulating what dance the emperor was to use when worshipping Heaven, or what music was to be played for an imperial inspection tour. The fundamental principle was to create a harmonious society through cultivation of character and delineation of status. In terms of movements, most were slow and stately. "When the arm was brought up, the sleeve opened out, creating a beautiful visual image. And it was considered proper that the toes be pointed upward."

Liu's husband Chi Pei-lin was director of the Graduate Institute of Physical Education at National Taiwan Normal University, and his research ha s made him deeply knowledgeable about the capabilities of the human body. He has ta ken good care of her and been of great help to her in her work.

Stretching tradition to modernity

Reconstructing ancient music and dance was just the first step for Liu. From these precious materials she wanted to develop "Chinese modern dance" that in spirit and gesture belonged to Chinese people. "Tradition is very valuable, but I didn't want to be someone who just resurrected the past. If there is no personal concept involved, there would be no sense of accomplishment," she says, adding: "Preserving and reconstructing tradition is a work of the intellect. Creativity is a work of passion. I have always wanted to tie intellect and passion together."

How could this be done? "Any action can be choreographed. Even as ordinary an action as scratching an itch can be extended and altered rhythmically," she says, moving her arms in illustration. "The opera and martial arts communities have standardized their movements. I wanted to change their speed, height, and direction, not just transfer the unaltered original movements on to the dance stage."

In 1967, at the then-Chungshan Hall, she staged "Classic and Modern." One half consisted of reconstructed classics like "Pa Tou," "Song of the Cuckoo Bird," and "Dance of the People." The other half was composed of her own works, like "Confrontation" and "Song of the Land." In 1968 she staged another performance, "Tradition and Creation." Chang Li-chu, a former student, recalls that the Chungshan Hall was packed to capacity. The audience watched in absolute silence, then erupted in sustained applause when the curtain fell. Drama critic Yao Yi-wei recalls the sensation as if it were yesterday: "It felt like we were at the birth of a new era in Chinese dance. We saw how West could be combined with East, and tradition with modernity. We saw how body language could express our contemporary feelings and lives."

Liu's next work, "Black Hole," explores the relationship between movement and gravitational attraction. She is now busy researching theories of astrophysics.

Old and new

By 1976, Liu had already created more than 80 pieces, and staged a number of performances. She felt that the style she was experimenting with had matured, and she founded the Neo-Classic Dance Company. Over the past 20 years, the troupe has performed one "Chinese modern dance" after another, becoming the most important expressive organ for Liu Feng-shueh's creations.

Quite a few of Liu's works are based on classical literature or opera. For example, during some spare time on a flight home from abroad, she was inspired to choreograph "Fisherman's Song" by the Tang dynasty poet Zhang Zhihe. "Autumn River," which depicts the emotional breakthrough of a young Buddhist nun, is based on the opera The Jade Hairpin. She identifies closely with the poet Qu Yuan, who wrote, "The road is long and distant; high and low I search." Two of her pieces--"Heavenly Questions" and "The Seance"--are adapted from his poems of the same name.

Liu also has many pieces that reflect contemporary life, such as "Document." The inspiration for this came from a comment by the historian Chen Yingque: "Our lives have no meaning, but we continue to live anyway." In this dance she recorded half a century of hardship for China, from the Rape of Nanjing in 1937 to the disorder in Taiwan's society today. The year she went to Germany to study, she was sparked to create "Berlin Wall." This so moved a then high school student, Tseng Ming-sheng, that he entered the Department of Physical Education at NTNU to become her student.

Liu feels that dance is more like poetry than any other literary form, rather than like a novel or an essay. Because her pieces rarely have stage design, her works have always had a somewhat abstract feel. Take for example "Circling." The background music is Mozart's Concerto for Flute in A Major, and she tried to bring together both C憴anne's and Picasso's theories of imagery and the special significance of the circle in Chinese culture.

Liu's work has been compared to a "symphony" by one critic. "Carmina Burana" displays the same majestic style she has shown all her life.

Looking abroad for memories of home

Though Liu has unlimited hopes toward creative work, it can also be very exhausting. "It is my custom to 'keep chipping away'." When doing "Sacrifice of Snow," she even went so far as to hang a noose and used her own neck to see how Dou'er must have felt when she hanged herself. When her husband Chi Pei-lin saw this, he was very distressed, and encouraged Liu to put aside her choreography and go abroad for a while.

In 1981, at the age of 54, Liu took a hiatus from the dance troupe; she headed to London University's Laban Centre for Movement and Dance to begin pursuing her doctorate. She concentrated on the study of Chinese ritual dance, exploring the social structure and thought of the past through the movements and spatial arrangements of ancient dance. She drew on three works she had previously collected--"Greatness Over the Four Seas," "The World Completely Reformed," and "The Emperor Destroys the Formations." She did her dissertation under Cambridge University professor L.E.R. Picken, a scholar of Tang dynasty music who transcribed "The Emperor Destroys the Formations" into modern staff notation. Thus teacher and student were able to work together to fully reconstruct this dance. Liu earned her degree at the age of 62, becoming Taiwan's first doctor of dance.

To trace the origins of Chinese dance, Liu had to go abroad several times to find materials. Did she feel a sense of sadness over having to go to foreign lands to recover customs long lost at home?

"I felt some sense of sadness, yes. Just look, it took an English person to transcribe Tang dynasty music into standard staff notation," she says. "Yet," she continues, "I think that the Tang dynasty is now a cultural asset for all humanity. Indeed, the Tang itself absorbed a great deal of foreign culture, and much music and dance of that period came from Central Asia, becoming a part of Chinese dance. It all depends on how open, tolerant, and broad- minded one is."

Given the recent favor bestowed in Taiwan on things "native," the music and dance of Taiwan's aboriginal peoples have been staged as an art form, and groups of indigenous people have formed aboriginal dance troupes. Using anthropological methodology, they have studied and recorded the disappearing songs and steps of every indigenous community.

Back when Liu went single-handedly into aboriginal communities in search of their dances and ceremonies, she was commissioned by the Department of Civil Affairs of the Taiwan Provincial Government to gather young people from the nine major aboriginal groups together to learn each other's music and dance. Besides introducing the various songs and steps, Liu also added a few innovations of her own. "For example, originally the Bunun had no dance per se. But I noticed that when they drank wine, they would squat down and rock gently, so I expanded this movement into a dance," she relates, adding with a laugh: "I see that people are still performing it today!"

Also, in 1994, Liu drew on indigenous peoples' music and dance to create a work entitled "The Silent Sound of the Pestle." The piece is social criticism, depicting the current condition of the aboriginal people under the assault of modern civilization.

Yet, even though Liu was one of the first to research "native" dance culture in Taiwan, she says, "We should absorb any culture that is good, so that it becomes part of our own. It's not enough to look only at one's native soil. Moreover, if that becomes a slogan, that would by no means be good for the next generation."

Tireless retirement

In 1988 Liu was named the director of the National Theater and National Concert Hall, causing her to take a break from creative work. In her time there, besides holding ballet and opera workshops to develop the next generation of talent, she also allowed the two halls to put on productions of their own (as opposed to just allowing private groups to use the venues).

Since retiring, Liu has kept right on going. If she hasn't been doing choreography for the Neo-Classic Dance Company, then she's had her head buried in the books.

Each time Liu begins creating, her students moan, "Ms. Liu, you are going to lock yourself away again." Despite having more than 100 pieces to her credit, she rarely re-uses any dance movements, and each time an old work is performed again she changes the choreography and is unwilling just to do it the same as the original.

Was she satisfied by this performance of "Tsao Pi and Chen Mi"? Naturally not. "If I staged it again, I think I would cut out everything. The only two scenes I would keep are the single soldier on stage when the curtain rises, and that feeling of profound loneliness of Tsao Chih alone at the end." Having closed the show successfully, Liu smiled graciously, but her words are in earnest.

"Ms. Liu has been tirelessly teaching, creating, experimenting, researching, and writing. It's a force that even she herself can't resist that keeps her doing artistic work non-stop," says Chang Li-chu. For Liu herself, her four-decade passion for creation is more than just an interest, and more even than a mission. "The biggest motivation is to keep challenging myself."

Black Hole

After the curtain came down on "Tsao Pi and Chen Mi," Liu went right to work on project #110. Expected to be staged in November, it has the very timely and hip name of "Black Hole." Her inspiration came from the book A Brief History of Time by the renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

"When I was getting my PhD at Cambridge, I often saw a man in a wheelchair in the garden where Newton is said to have sat under the legendary apple tree. It was only later that I found out it was Hawking!" In A Brief History of Time, Hawking introduces the origins of the universe and the phenomenon of black holes. In her piece, Liu explores the relationship between action and attraction. Currently she has a stack of astrophysics texts on her desk to begin research.

Several years ago Liu and a group of students set themselves the task of producing a dictionary of dance. Today more than 10,000 entries have been completed, and the work has been turned over to the National Institute for Compilation and Translation for publication. Two years ago she established the "Neo-Classical Performing Arts Foundation." She plans to reproduce a number of precious Tang dynasty materials and works of her own in choreographic notation, with the goal of releasing books and videotapes sometime in the future.

Having chatted to this point, suddenly Liu softly but seriously says, "Most of my works have been tragedies, so next year I plan to produce a piece based on a children's story, to do something a little more light-hearted." Her eyes light up when she smiles.

That's Liu Feng-shueh. Even as we are basking in the memories of her last creation, she has already put it behind her and begun thinking about the next.

If there were no Liu Feng-shueh, what would be different about Chinese modern dance? "My generation was just at the juncture of tradition and modernity, and we thought more about where we had been and where we were going," she says. Then, with a smile, she suggests, "If I didn't do it, someone else would have."

Really?