The new dance piece "22° Lunar Halo(毛月亮)"by Taiwanese dance troupe Cloud Gate's artistic director Cheng Tsung-lung (鄭宗龍) will be presented at this year's International Society for the Performing Arts' (ISPA) flagship program "Pitch New Works" in an online event scheduled for June 10.
This year, a total of 10 teams from United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and other countries were selected to introduce their new works in the program, which is a forum for creators and arts professionals to share and discover new performing arts project, striving for opportunities for future international performance collaborations. Cloud Gate is the only Asian team to be selected this year.
Every January, ISPA holds its annual event in New York, attracting members from all over the world to discuss the latest international performing arts topics. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is the second time ISPA has run a virtual session, following an edition in June that stood in place of its cancelled mid-year congress that was planned for Taipei. This edition of Pitch New Works has been developed in collaboration with the Icelandic Opera.
Commissioned by subsidiaries of National Performing Arts Center – National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying), National Theater and Concert Hall, and National Taichung Theater - the production of "22° Lunar Halo" was inspired by Cheng’s journey in Iceland, where he saw the moonlight bending through the ice crystal clouds. He was obsessed with the silver-white halo refracted around the moon.
The production was completed in collaboration with internationally renowned Icelandic band Sigur Rós, musical coordinator Kjartan Holm, visual designer Jam Wu(吳耿禎), lighting designer Shen Po-hung(沈柏宏), video designer Wang Yei-sheng(王奕盛), and clothing designer Chen Shao-yen(陳劭彥).
In this edition, the ten projects were selected from a pool of 62 applications by ISPA’s Pitch New Works committee. The committee includes CEO of ISPA David Baile, Canada’s major performing arts center Places Des Arts; Melbourne International Arts Festival; Universidad de Guadalajara; National Forum of Music in Poland, as well as CEO and Artistic Director of Icelandic Opera.