Twisting Heads and Silent Songs — TAO Dance Theater

In 2024, TAO Dance Theater created two new works in its celebrated Numerical Series: 16 and 17.

These two productions deepen the company’s exploration of bodily movement, further expanding the richness of the Circular Movement System while investigating the practice of Eastern somaesthetics. Beginning from the image of “following inertia,” the works generate endless possibilities of “instantaneous flow.”

“All my creations seek a language of the human body.
It is a state in which description is unnecessary.”
— Tao Ye

16 and 17 are co-productions of the La Biennale di Venezia and TAO Dance Theater, with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.

16

Credits

• Choreography: Tao Ye
• Music: Xiao He
• Costume Design: Duan Ni, produced by DNTY

Duration: 26 minutes

16 is the fifteenth work in Tao Ye’s Numerical Series.
The choreography is inspired by the traditional Dragon Dance and the game Snake. Sixteen dancers are connected in a linear formation, creating a flowing tail-like structure. Through continuous motion, rotation, and progression, energy circulates uninterruptedly from beginning to end, revealing layered spatial dynamics and overlapping streams of movement.
In its investigation of physical language, 16 further develops new possibilities for bodily motion. It opens a circular 360-degree space for the movement of both body and head.
Hidden areas of the head — the forehead, nose, ears, and back of the skull — become points of articulation. Circles of varying forms are traced through space while the dancers’ bodies move like a dragon.
Built upon the spinal principles of the Circular Movement System, the choreography is guided by movements of drilling, striking, transmitting, falling, following, twisting, and wrapping initiated by the head. The limbs continuously shift according to the body’s natural inertia and center of gravity.
Every subtle twist of head and torso creates concentric micro-spaces of motion. Through the final exploration of repetitive and non-repetitive movement, 16 paints a chaotic yet dazzling microcosmic world.

17

Credits

• Choreography: Tao Ye
• Sound Concept: Tao Ye, developed with the dancers of TAO Dance Theater
• Music: Cheng Leting Wu Zhenka
• Costumes: DNTY

Duration: 25 minutes

17 is the sixteenth work in the Numerical Series and continues Tao Ye’s experimentation with the relationship between sound form and bodily movement, creating a dialogue with the earlier work 7.
Seventeen dancers scatter and regroup in seemingly disordered patterns. From beginning to end, sound functions as the signal guiding the thoughts and movements of the group.
Falls, echoes, propagations, and sonic eruptions unfold continuously. Sound remains synchronized with bodily movement, forming a contrasting interplay between two distinct yet interconnected languages.
Strange, hybrid, and irregular relationships emerge visually through waves of sound and bursts of movement resembling fireworks.
The creation of 17 originates from a kinesthetic imagination of sound itself. It becomes a song without words and a language that feels mysteriously familiar.
This contradictory sensation — both distant and intimate — permeates the entire work.
For Tao Ye, the fluctuations and linearity of sound are not merely auditory experiences but also physical ones:

“Bodies are all connected — this is a language of the world.”