Welcome ReceptionDate: Thursday, October 22, 2015
Time: 18:00-19:30
Venue: 3F, Banquet Hall, TICC Symposium BanquetDate: Friday, October 23, 2015
Time: 19:00-21:00 
Venue: 3F, Banquet Hall, TICC

Culture Performance

Date: Friday, October 23, 2015
Time: 18:00-19:00 
Venue: 3F Plenary Hall, TICC

U-Theatre: Founded in Taiwan by Ms. Ruo-Yu Liu, its present art director, in October 1988, and joined by its drumming master and music director, Mr. Chih-Chun Huang, since 1993, U-Theatre has presented rigorous works of aesthetic beauty rooted in the disciplined study and practice of meditation, drumming, martial arts, Tai-Chi, dance, and acting. Uniting East and the West, the ancient and the modern, the spiritual and the soulful, U Theatre lives and breathes ‘Excellence” as embodied by the meaning of the Chinese character “U”. Over the last decade the U-Theatre has been invited to perform at the world stage including Barbican Center (UK), Cultuurcentrum Brugges (Belgium), Avignon Festival, Biennale de la Danse (France), and the Next Wave Festival at BAM (NYC).

The performance at the 2015 IEEE IUS consists of the following three parts:
Surging: As a part of The Sound of Ocean, Surging is marked by ritual-like choreography and overwhelmingly intense music. With a full blast of highly enthusiastic and vibrant drumming, this piece reveals a force that is capable of bringing together and elevating the spirits of the audience. In a certain way, Surging can be compared to making a brushstroke in Chinese calligraphy. With a stroke of the pen, the debut is made, as if a mountain were falling and the ground breaking apart, resulting in cracks that reveal springs, which symbolize the birth of man. The water flows down, following the structure of the landscape that symbolizes the course of human life.

Sword of Spirits: The performance combines sticks, drums and martial arts to form a dance. In the middle of the stage, the hero turns around, stares at, or concentrates on striking the drums with a stick. All these gestures are blended into rhythms. Together with the women surrounding him who strike their drums from the side, they form a picture where there is tenderness in the middle of rigidity, and there is rigidity in the middle of tenderness. Long and short sticks fall simultaneously or in alternation on the top of the drum or the drum body, and together with the vocal singing reveal an extraordinary diverse music.

Sword of Wisdom: This piece is inspired by the story of Manjusri Bodhisattva who holds a sword in one hand, and scripts in the other. When the hero is granted wisdom, it is as if he had several selves, with his power multiplied. On the stage are five heroes, who in reality represent the strength of one hero. The heroes strike the drums and the ground with swords, and, by throwing and spinning them, make different sounds on the top, the body, the middle of the top of different drums or by striking on the ground, symbolizing ubiquitous wisdom. On the stage, martial arts, long sticks and drumbeats, and the turning around, rotating and jumping and leaping of the performers, together with richly diverse singing, produce a visual sensation of «blending together» in stereo. This is a new drumming form developed and practiced rigorously by U People. Striking the drums with long sticks produces an intimate relationship between performers, drums and rhythms, obtaining a form of performance that combines hands, eyes, the body and gestures into one whole. The performers are fully absorbed in each and every gesture and drumbeat; their concentration and the unity of their body and mind are visible to the spectators.