Employing a head piece called “Ling Zi” that incorporates pheasant tail feathers worn in traditional Chinese opera to represent a warrior’s power and skill, Birdy offers up a magpie creation, concretizing bright bursts of freedom against the weighted cage of history.

Founded in 2017 by choreographer Lai Hung-Chung, Hung Dance’s choreographic vocabulary is drawn from martial arts, Peking opera, and traditional cultural symbols. Through the prism of performance, Taiwan’s complex history and political status metamorphose into a thrilling new dance language.

The calligraphic eloquence of four-foot-long feathers moves from gentleness to violence, transforming into spears, whips, and a blade drawn sharply across the throat. As the dancers flock together in rippling patterns of conformity and divergence, rituals of behaviour gleaned from the non-human world find their choreographic counterparts. Groupthink meets the defiance of individual identity, revealing a universal cry for freedom.