by Anne Lo
“Oh my God, did you guys see that? Wow! That’s awesome!” Other than screams and whistles this is the kind of thing most often heard at pop dance performances. Hip-hop, old-skool, nu-skool, breaking, new jazz: they have all brought thrills to millions of fans. But what goes on behind the scenes? What’s the life of a dancer really like? To find the answers to these questions, I talked to Yi-chien (苡茜), a former member of MASK, one of the top dance groups in Taiwan. The amazing thing is that she is also a university student, just like us. So here I was with her sitting across from me, looking totally different from what I expected. “Fooled ya!” she said playfully when I commented on her clothing. I was expecting baggy pants, a big T-shirt, and perhaps a baseball cap. But her shorts and spaghetti straps surprised me. “I only dressed like that because I needed to,” she went on. “At first it’s comfortable, but it gets boring after a while.” Of course being a dancer is more than just clothes. Practice is definitely required. And since MASK is a professional dance group, dancing is their job. This makes it even more demanding. “Our practice time is from midnight to 2:00 a.m. Sometimes we practice even longer if we have a really important performance coming up. And after practice, we’re all so tired we just sleep in the studio!” “And what do your parents think of your not coming home?” “Well, they were mad for a period of time, because I’m a girl. But you know parents’ authority can always be challenged! We have to work hard because the choreography is not done one or two weeks in advance, but normally in two to three days. Five days is the most time we might get to prepare for a performance. So you can see how pressing that is. I have to work especially hard because almost all the other dancers have been dancing longer than I have. I need more time than they do to memorize, so you see how this is very demanding for me.” That sounds tough, I thought, but does it also have anything to do with being a girl? One of the things that first got me interested in Yi-chien is that she was the only girl in her group. One girl, fourteen guys. What’s it like? “Tough. Very tough! I have to do everything with twice the power and make it twice as big to be the same as the others!” I know this well, I thought, since I’ve also done some locking and new-skool with the guys in my club. But since MASK specializes in these and other kinds of dances usually done by male dancers, doesn’t that feel strange? “Not at all, because I’m quite used to it. Ever since I started dancing I took lessons from male teachers, danced with guys. And the group I joined before MASK was a breaking group, so I think I’m very comfortable with this kind of dance and very used to dancing with guys. Nobody tried to stop me or had any opinions about it because it was my own choice. It was my choice, and mine alone.” When asked about difficulties or conflicts of working with guys, she replied that changing clothes was the most inconvenient thing. All they had to do was stand there and change, and I had to run a long way to find a bathroom! As for conflicts, I don’t think there were any…not that I can think of…" Then I told her my own story, how I tried out for boys’ dancing in our club, how the guy in charge didn’t want any girls in the first place, how the boys ignored me at practice, and how, in the end, I didn’t get chosen even though I could do just as well as the guys. Yi-chien listened quietly, then pondered for a moment. “That’s so mean!” she said, “But let me tell you, c’est la vie! – That’s life!” “Does that mean there’s nothing I can do about it?” “Well, you can always get into another group, work hard until you’re better than he is, then come back and kick his butt!” I laughed. This is my hero, I thought! “For me, being in MASK was a very rewarding experience. I learned a lot. I keep learning as I go. And the most important thing was that I learned things that could never be learned in an all-girls group or even a boy-girl group. I think it’s important for dancers to get in touch with things other than dance. Some people think that if you’re a dancer, you must be totally devoted to dance and if you’re not, they think you are a traitor. But I see no point in that. There are so many things to learn in the world. Why limit yourself?” “Well then, do you think you would like to have dancing as a career?” “If there’s a chance, I’d love to. But it’s not the only thing I can do. I might like to go into advertising, or film making…Who knows? We never know what life has in store for us. And like I said – c’est la vie!” a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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