Who: U-Theatre, from Taiwan
Work: Meeting with the Bodhisattva (80 minutes, no intermission)
Presented by: White Bird
When: Thursday – Saturday, April 8 – 10, 7:30pm
Where: Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, Portland
Sponsor: The Oregonian
Tickets: $20-$55.  Order through Ticketmaster outlets, 1-800-745-3000 or www.ticketmaster.com. 
Visit www.whitebird.org for the latest information.

“Like monks preparing themselves for a grand ceremony  . . .their virtuosity is spectacular.”
–Le Figaro (Lyon)

White Bird is delighted to present the Portland debut of Taiwan’s most celebrated theatre, dance and music troupe U-Theatre at the Newmark Theatre from April 8-10, immediately following their performances at the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad.   Hailed by The New York Times for its “grand and complex beauty,” U-Theatre will showcase their unique rigorous and spiritual aesthetic that draws upon both Eastern and Western forms of martial arts, athletic drumming, dance, and Tai-Chi.

The name U-Theatre derives from the pronunciation of “U” in Chinese, which means “excellence,” and in ancient China, referred also to a “professional actor.” The Artistic Director is Liu Ruo-Yu, who created her internationally acclaimed company in 1988 to embody the Zen belief that a true artist should balance artistic skill with self-improvement. Working closely with Liu Ruo-Yu is the Music Director and Drumming Master Chih-Chun Huang, who, upon joining the company in 1993, radically changed the character of U-Theatre by requiring performers to study meditation before taking up percussion.

The company will perform the West Coast premiere of its acclaimed work, Meeting with Bodhisattva, which depicts an individual’s journey towards enlightenment. Divided into six scenes, Meeting with Bodhisattva is derived from four Buddhist verses and relates the story of a warrior who ultimately pushes aside his fears of the unknown and embarks upon the search for wisdom.  Seeking to convey a positive force to the audience through agile body movements and precise, rhythmic paces, the performers employ martial arts, theater, dance, music and the technique of drumming using long sticks, which represents not only a main feature of the work but is an innovation of U-Theatre’s in their development of the drumming arts.  The seamless 80-minute piece will demonstrate the virtuosity of U-Theatre’s 13 performers who alternately explode in movement or repose in controlled serenity, evoking the fierceness of martial arts and the elegance of tai-chi.

Founded in 1988, U-Theatre has been described as philosophy in motion in which the performance is not an end in itself but an aspect of a holistic way of life oriented in the Tao (the way).   The company’s home is located high in the rugged landscape of Laochuan Mountain, an hour outside of Taipei, where platforms and shelter have been cut and built into the rock.  Each new production is invented and rehearsed here, the environment a cradle of U-Theatre’s investigations and a potent source of energy and inspiration for the group.   Further inspiration comes from the company’s regular treks in various parts of the world including meeting with nine aboriginal tribes during 35 days of hiking in 1997 in the mountainous regions of Eastern Taiwan and, in 2002, a trek on the Tibetan Plateau at 5000m to reach Mt Kailash.

In the company’s works, the relationship of the individual to the whole community – and, by extension, of the group to the audience worldwide – is portrayed without explicit narrative or the creation of imagined characters.  The result is a fascinating and unique mode of contemporary movement theatre that is process-based, finely tuned and performer dependent.  It is grounded in a collective experience predicated on each member’s personal search for enlightenment and balance.

Liu Ruo-Yu was born in Taiwan in 1956 and graduated with a master’s degree in performance art from New York University. She was host of the widely acclaimed children’s television show, Little Mask, for which she received a Golden Clock Award. In the early 1980s, as the lead actress of the Lan Ling Performance Theatre, Liu Ruo-Yu performed in numerous highly acclaimed works – of which her role as Ho Chu in Ho Chu’s New Style gained the most recognition. She continued to pursue her love of the theater in the United States where she came under the tutelage of renowned Polish theater director Jerzy Grotowski, and it was during this year that she developed her fundamental approach to performance art as “an individual’s attitude toward life.”

White Bird’s presentation of U-Theatre is supported in part by the Oregon Cultural Trust.
White Bird’s 12th season (2009-10) is supported by the Regional Arts & Culture Council and Work for Art, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, Meyer Memorial Trust, James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation,  Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, The Collins Foundation, Oregon Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, Oregon Cultural Trust, The Kinsman Foundation, The Jaffe Foundation, The Autzen Foundation, Bank of America Foundation, Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) and U.S. Bancorp Foundation.