Established in June 1997, the Acme Physical Dance Theatre was the first professional modern dance company based in Taichung, and remains to be the most distinguished one in central Taiwan; Performing Arts Reviews had a detailed report titled “bright future” for it. Its art director, Shih Gee-Tze was the first Taiwanese dancer transferred from fine arts, and the press praised him as “a choreographer who paints with human body”.
From the year of its birth, APDT has been presenting new works each year to explore new body languages of the East, including Square, Three Dynamics, Millennium Ritual, Sandglass, A Fantasy About Bach, Feel and Respond, Zhan Zhuan, Taroko, Grass Mountain, True Man, and Window. Also standing out in recent years on the international stage, APDT was invited by Malaysia’s Department of Culture to participate in its TARI-2000 International Dance Festival. In the same year, it became Taiwan’s first modern dance company to receive an invitation from Brigham Young University in the United States. In 2001, APDT was invited to perform with dancers from Western Australian Performing Arts Academy, and parts of that cooperation, Feel and Respond, and Square, its earlier work, were invited to perform at Marnes River Valley Dance Festival. In 2002, the work entitled Zhan Zhuan has a great success in the 5th International Chekhov Theatre Festival in Moscow covering considerable reports by Russian press.
From the year 2003 on, APDT started to work on a series of dance works inspired by Taiwan’s National Parks. The first of the series was Taroko, the premier of which is in October 2003; then in November next year, Grass Mountain, the second piece of the series was presented with great success. In 2004, the mediation on Zhuang Zi’s thinking turned into True Man, which was invited by Taiwan’s Council of Cultural Affair to perform at the 4th Foreign Cultural Week in Paris, and won the hearts of international press, locals and reviewers. Michel Caserta, art director of Marne River Valley Dance Festical, remarked that True Man “was absolutely inspiring and exciting.” In 2006, Mr. Shih was invited to be the guest artist in Cite Internationaldes Arts, and presented Windows after his return. By December 2006, APDT has had 450 international performances and lectures. Evolutionism, its new work in 2007 was invited to the 20th Anniversary Festival of National Theatre and Concert Hall, making APDT the only dance theatre outside Taipei to participated in this festival. As the one and only professional modern dance theatre, APDT wishes to refresh Taiwan’s culture and art via dance, and it shall start doing so in the centre part of Taiwan, dancing its way into the world and showing our international friends what Taiwan has to offer.
In 2006, APDT leveraged its profound relationship with Taichung and took up two major projects by National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and Taichung Brewery. In these projects, APDT coordinated nearly 30 forms of cross-field activities, such as music, dance, theatre, installation art, fashion show, exhibition, playback theatre, movie, documentary, seminar, car exhibition, etc, which not only activated the cultural development of the city, but also extended the practical side of performing arts into the realms of business, government, academy, and culture and art.
Acme Physical Dance Theatre/ Choreographer / Artistic Director
Shih Gee-Tze
Shih Gee-Tze is the founder and general director of the Acme Physical Theatre. Considered one of the most promising choreographers in Taiwan today. A fine arts major, Mr. Shih was a painter, and street portrait artist, whose paintings had been constantly exhibited. Before founding the Theatre, Mr. Shih’s dance work Thoughts of the Sea won the top award for excellence in modern dance and the individual award for best choreography at the Taiwan Provincial Folk Dance Contest. In 1998, recommended by Lin Hwai-min of Cloud Gate, he went to the United States to study choreography and performance at the University of Connecticut. In 1999, Taipei National University of the Arts conferred him the degree of master of fine arts majoring in choreography.
Taiwan’s prestigious Performing Arts Review dubbed him as “a choreographer who paints with the human body.” Since the founding of the Theatre in 1997, he has choreographed dance works totaling over 600 minutes, including Three Dynamics, Square in Formation, the Land of Purity, Millennium Ritual, Sandglass, A Fantasy about Bach, the Classical Style, Feel & Respond , ?Zhan Zhuang , Tarko, and? Grass Mountain. The newest work True man will present in Paris in 2005.
Square in Formation won the Taipei National University of the Art’s top scholarship for outstanding artistic work, and has been performed abroad with the invitation from both Malaysia’s Department of Culture and Brigham Young University in the United States. In 2000, A Fantasy about Bach was selected for the “Taipei Dance Umbrella,” and Sandglass was selected as the opening act at the National Theater’s Millennium Experimental Dance Exhibition. At the end of September 2001, Mr. Shih has been invited to Paris to perform the solo portions of Feel & Respond at the Marnes River Valley Arts Festival. Same year, his work Feel & Respond united performance by the dancers of Acme Physical Dance Theatre and Australia’s Western Australian Performing Arts Academy. ?In May 2002, he directed the “Dancing on the Rail” tour in Taiwan. In 2003, the work entitled Zhan Zhuang presented in the 5th International Chekhov Theatre Festival in Moscow.
Mr. Shih has served as a teacher and a visiting artist at a large number of schools at home and abroad.? He has been a lecturer for the art department at Tunghai University , Chan Haw Teacher University, Ming Chuan University and the art education department at Hsin-Chu Teacher College, an invited instructor at Malaysia’s TARI-2000 Dance Festival, a visiting choreographer at the University of Connecticut, and a visiting artist at Utah State University’s dance department, Brigham Young University’s dance department, Weber State University’s dance department, Jordan High School’s dance department, Lone Peak High School’s dance department, and guest artist to choreography for Australia’s Western Australian Performing Arts Academy.
Review
The
dancers' bodyes in Acme Physical Dance Theatre seem to be boundless.
It doesn't look like western ballet, but it's also not the traditional
modern dance style known to all . (Vremya MN, Moscow 2003.07.14)
The dextrous dancers reveal the true connotation of the "oriental
body." (Nezavimaya, Moscow 2003.07.15)
"Expect great talent and performance from APT in the future....
energetic and twinkling dynamics. An exciting and rhythmic tempo.
The piece "Square" is valiant and solemn. It is successful
to melt Chinese martial arts and west dance technique."
----PERFORMING
ARTS REVIEW
"APDT
is the first professional modern dance company in the center of
Taiwan, Taichung".
----MIN
SHENG DAILY
"The
body language are powerful and challenging...the choreographer designs
the natural view on the stage to attract audience visual."
------THE
LIBERTY TIMES
"Shih
Gee-Tze's peaceful finale, Feel and Respond, celebrating the beauty
of ritual and the power of the dawn."
----
The West Australian TODAY NEWS
Culture
and language barriers will be broken through the power of dance
when APDT dancers from Taiwan bring their unique performance to
BYU, US.
----The
Daily Universe, Life Style
TAIWAN
NEWS (2002.9.19):
Let's
get physical.
TAIPEL
TIMES(2002.10.4):
Choreographer
Shih Gee Tze: I move my body the way Buddhists Knock on wooden
drums. Dance is my religion
Compass
Magazine(October):
The
Ultimate Body-Energy Dance Group is an ambassador of Taiwanese
body art from Taichung to the world
