AROUND TOWN FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010

Mando-pop’s ‘bel canto diva’ marches into the pub Chou Huei’s brand of Mando-pop engages heart and mind. She performs at Brown Sugar each Tuesday this month

By ANDREW C.C. HUANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

hen Chou Huei during a rehearsal last week. (周蕙) released her first “I think it’s important to album a decade ago, she was change the mood for the widely expected to become one of audience a few times during the four lesser “Queens of Heaven” the evening.” (四小天后) of the Chinese-language Chou achieved fame overnight music scene along with Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), with an animated music video of her Stefanie Sun (孫燕姿) and Elva Hsiao (蕭亞軒). delivering a crystalline cover of Dubbed the “bel canto diva” (美聲天后), pop diva Faye Wong’s (王菲) Promise (約定), but Chou — who performs every Tuesday this she did not show her face on an album cover until her fifth month at Brown Sugar — is a talented with album of original material, which was released last year. a voice that can take on many colors. Even her most Contrary to her shy and introspective public persona, conventional Mando-pop ballads have a degree of controlled however, in private Chou is upbeat and even mischievous elegance that can be quite appealing in contrast to the at times. overblown sentimentality of the genre as a whole. But in “I once fell off the stage while performing in . My 2003 a contract dispute derailed her career and forced her agent’s face totally turned green,” she said. “I just laughed to take a four-year hiatus from the music industry. and climbed back on the stage.” “Had I followed up on the success of my first album and Chou says she listens to an eclectic range of music released an album every year for the past decade, I would including dance, rock and trip pop. “I listen to Lady Gaga to have become a really egocentric person,” Chou said. “I was study her,” she said. “Many people see her as an entertainer forced to take a break ... it’s allowed me to become a better who’s famous because of her bizarre antics, but I see her as singer because I understand the kind of frustrations the an entertainer with substance who is worth emulating.” average person has to deal with.” Chou is now her own producer and is currently screening Chou spent 2004 traveling around the globe and returned songs for her next album. with a new perspective on life, one that is reflected in her “I want to show my quirky side more on the next album,” choice of album titles. Her 2002 release is called Lonely she said. “It will be an album based on the theme of city life.” City (寂寞城市). Her 2007 album is titled Blossom (綻放). Chou’s four-part “mini concert” at Brown Sugar is called Performance notes Listen With Your Heart Chou Huei (醉心聆聽周蕙). Each Tuesday night she will choose 14 songs from a list of 20 to What: Listen With Your Heart Chou Huei (醉心聆聽周蕙) perform. The set includes some of her own hit ballads; two When: Tuesday and June 29 at 10pm Shanghai-era oldies, Barbecued Pork Bun (叉燒包) and I Where: Brown Sugar, 101 Songren Rd, Taipei City Want Your Love (我要你的愛); Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance and (台北市松仁路101號) Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head. Admission: Tickets are NT$760, available by calling “These two [Shanghai] oldies are naughty and lively (02) 8780-1110 or online at www.brownsugarlive.com songs. I chose Lady Gaga and Kylie Minogue’s songs On the Net: Photoscourtesy of because I personally listen to dance songs,” Chou said tw.myblog.yahoo.com/whereforever-whereforever M ’ S tone I nternational

[ DANCE ] Journey to the Moon Performance notes What: Dance Forum Taipei and Condors, Moon River When: June 25 and June 26 at 7:30pm, June 27 at 2:30pm Choreographer Ryohei Kondo is bravely taking audiences where Where: National Theater (國家戲劇院), 21-1 Zhongshan no Japanese or Taiwanese dance troupe has ever gone before S Rd, Taipei City (台北市中山南路21-1號) Admission: NT$400 to NT$1,200, available at the NTCH By Diane Baker box office or through www.artsticket.com.tw Staff Reporter

ext week’s performance and storytelling. There is also a they performed in the of Moon River (月球水) at lot of slapstick — after all, this building’s lobby. She said she N the National Theater is is a group of men, of all shapes had wanted to do a project shaping up to be something of a and sizes, and not all of them with them ever since. “dance-off” between one of the are dancers. After a Condors “We talked about this project top contemporary dance troupes performance at the Japan through my agent friend in Japan, in Taipei and one from Tokyo. Society in New York, the Village Mayumi Nagatoshi, whom I’ve Judging from the video clips on Voice critic called them “the known for 25 years ... It became YouTube, it also looks like a Japanese Monty Python” — an a reality when we confirmed the whole lot of fun for dancers and image I’m still trying to come to dates with [the] National Theater ◄ Japanese all-male dance audiences alike. grips with since grace and speed last spring,” Peng said, adding troop Condors rehearse, Under the leadership of founder are not among my memories that the Condors came to Taipei with choreographer Ryohei Ping Heng (平珩), Dance Forum of John Cleese and company. in April and last month, while her Kondo kneeling in front. Taipei (舞蹈空間舞蹈團) has become Maybe it’s because the Condors company went to Japan in April ▲ Dance Forum Taipei dancers rehearse Moon River. Photo courtesy of Dance Forum Taipei Photo courtesy of Condors known over the past two decades are famous for not taking for 10 days. for collaborative, innovative themselves too seriously. Even with such a short work. Ping has frequently created Ping invited the Condors to rehearsal period, Kondo was shows by pairing a foreign perform in Taipei in 2002 for apparently not at a loss for ideas, Kondo, alongside Dance Forum’s about, Kondo’s program notes Moon River is full of such hopeful a woman “body surfing” on a choreographer’s work with that of the Little Asia Dance Exchange ending up with 120 minutes’ worth 10 dancers. For more than half say it best. wishes,” he wrote. giant plastic bubble, incredibly a Taiwanese. This time, however, Network, which turned out to be of material. the show, the two troupes will be “When we were little, there “All the members of the Taipei fast-moving Japanese dancers she turned things completely over memorable for everyone involved “We will condense [it] into performing together. were no mobile phones. Nor flat team are masters of yoga who almost attacking the floor and to dynamic Japanese dancer- because Typhoon Nari had flooded 90 minutes for the final show. “They are aged from 36 to 46, screen TVs. Yet we had dreams; love the body. On the other hand, another woman being passed choreographer Ryohei Kondo, large parts of Taipei, including the It’s one dance with 21 sections, we are 23 to 33, so it will be a nice like a dream someday we would the members of Condors have along over a line of bodies — a la founder of the 14-year-old, all-male basement-level Crown Theater some are dance, some are more mix of generations. We all learned make a trip into space. Now, stiff bodies and are not so young. Pina Bausch’s Masurca Fogo, only troupe Condors. (皇冠藝術中心小劇場). dramatic, but all of them are so much from each other,” Ping thanks to the Internet, we can But we know how to drink beer she’s not being passed from hand Kondo has developed a In an e-mail interview, Peng beautiful and full of surprises,” said, adding that she really likes easily learn almost everything and how to entertain people,” to hand, she’s cartwheeling slowly reputation for works that said the Condors impressed Ping said. the way Kondo’s troupe tries to and do shopping online. But we Kondo wrote. from one raised foot to another. skillfully weave dance, people with their dramatic style, The Condors are a 13-man localize their shows when they no longer dream of space travel. I There you have it: space travel, Mix it all together and you get comedy, theater, live music, energy and adaptability. Since troupe, but only seven will be are traveling. feel the dreams we used to dream the Moon, dreams, yoga and beer. — well, we’ll have to wait a week multimedia imagery, puppetry the theater was out-of-bounds, dancing in Taipei, including As for what Moon River is all years ago were grand and joyful. Add in the video clip images of to see the results.