Earlier this year, a Taiwanese dancer did something amazing in Madrid. Hsueh Yu-Hsien captured the top prize for solo choreography and best dancer at the 33rd annual Spanish Dance and Flamenco Choreography Competition.
Hsueh, a permanent dancer with Ballet Nacional de España, achieved this distinction for Risa y olvido (Laughter and Oblivion). She adapted the title from Czech author Milan Kundera’s 1979 novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.
“I was working with Ballet Nacional, so I didn’t have much time to do personal works,” Hsueh tells Pancouver over Zoom. “In recent years, I travelled with my own group to Rome and other places. So, this new work is my way of sharing these new ideas and feelings that I had from my travels.”
Hsueh plans to premiere Risa y olvido in Canada on August 25 at the Fleck Dance Theatre at Harbourfront Centre as part of TAIWANfest Toronto. She will follow this up with another performance at Vancouver TAIWANfest on September 1. It’s part of the Flamenco de Formosa program, which will also feature original dance works choreographed by her mother, Ho Lian, and her brother, Hank.
“In Risa y olvido, I used the traditional music from Taiwan,” Hsueh reveals, noting that it came from Hakka culture.
Because of the musical score, Hsueh felt that it was particularly important to convey meaning through her movements. The warm reception offered a reminder that flamenco is an artform without boundaries.
“There is no limit,” she says.
The prestigious award came two years after her company, Genio Dance, captured a top group prize in Toledo, Spain. This was for Eterno retorno at Certamen de Coreografía de Danza Española y Flamenco.
Ho Lian takes flamenco to rural Taiwan
Dance lovers around the world don’t normally associate Taiwan with flamenco, which is known for its rapid footwork and fluid and intense body and arm movements. The artform—also famous for its hand-clapping (“palmas”) and audience interaction—blossomed in Andalusia in the 19th century. Its roots go back to North Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, and even Rajasthan from where the Roma people emigrated.
But thanks to Hsueh’s mother, Ho Lian, flamenco with a distinctly Taiwanese flavour has gained popularity in the East Asian nation. Ho, the daughter of a former Chinese Nationalist soldier and Taiwanese mother, became enraptured with flamenco as a young dance student in Spain.
“Growing up, I felt I was always pretending in my dance education, playing roles rather than being myself,” Ho tells Pancouver in Mandarin. “It wasn’t until I saw flamenco’s audacious movements at 19 that I found myself.
“When I started learning dance in Spain, the first lesson was practising eye contact,” she continues. “Eyes represent the soul. Once your soul is firm, you can begin to learn to be a dancer. You must first be yourself to become a flamenco dancer.”
Ho taught the dance club for several years at Taipei First Girls’ High School. Their dance troupe didn’t initially specialize in flamenco. Then in 1999, Ho launched the Hsia Lien-hua Dance Centre in Douliu with about 150 students. She raised both her children as a single mother.
For her, the turning point on her flamenco journey was the massive 7.3-magnitude earthquake centred in Taiwan’s Nantou County in 1999.
“When my dancer friend passed away, I asked myself: ‘What has brought me the most joy and what do I regret most in my life?’ ” Ho says. “The answer was both joy and regret in Spain. So, I decided to return to Spain to refine my dance.”
Barefoot and High Heels
She founded Genio Dance in 2000. Sadly, Ho developed long-term rheumatoid arthritis, but that didn’t dent her determination to bring flamenco to rural and Indigenous communities.
“To continue teaching dance and support my family, I took large amounts of painkillers and steroids, which led to bouts of crying at night and a bipolar disorder diagnosis,” she discloses. “A ceramic artist friend suggested I stop steroids, rely on prayer, and listen to my body, enduring the pain until I overcame the dependence on painkillers and steroids.”
After Ho felt healed by God, she ventured into rural and Indigenous communities to teach flamenco. Ho describes visiting the Bunun tribe after a 2009 typhoon as “a form of rebirth and healing for me”.
“I saw the various scenes after the disaster and learned to respect the mountains and land,” Ho states. “Initially, there were cultural misunderstandings when entering the tribe. I documented my experiences in my book, Barefoot and High Heels.”
The title represents Indigenous people dancing barefoot in the mountains, whereas accomplished flamenco dancers in Spain wear high heels.
“We were initially misunderstood, seen as disrespecting the land by stomping hard,” Ho recalls. “But with hugs and long visits, we built friendships.”
Hsueh speaks glowingly of her mother’s courage.
“She’s a very brave woman and I think she’s unique,” Hsueh says “She’s a very different mother…a true artist.”
That courage has rubbed off on Hsueh. Growing up, she yearned to become a ballet dancer. But her mother said that her figure was more suited for flamenco. So, Hsueh moved to Spain at the age of 12 to enter a Spanish dance conservatory.
Hsueh Yu-Hsien spoke to Formosa News in 2022 about her inspirations as a dancer.
Overcoming huge challenges
When started studying in Spain, Hsueh couldn’t speak Spanish, didn’t know Spanish classical dance moves, and had no idea how to play the castanets. She was alone because her single mother remained in Taiwan. Hsueh was only able to make the move because of the generosity of her maternal grandfather.
“When I was a little girl, I only had the one dream,” Hsueh says. “I just wanted to be a dancer.”
She thinks of flamenco as being like a “light in the dark” because it offers her the freedom to express herself. Like her mother, Hsueh succeeded through talent and determination. And years later, she returned to Taiwan and accompanied her mother into the mountains to teach flamenco to Indigenous people, including after natural disasters.
In their Canadian performances, the mother and daughter plan to tell the story of Taiwan through Spanish dance with Taiwanese flamenco dancers.
“There will be a part where they do traditional flamenco, and another part where it’s more experimental flamenco, inspired by their own creations,” Hsueh explains.
“The simple explanation is bare feet can represent Taiwan and the heels can represent Spain,” she adds. “Obviously, there are complex layers to it. When you’re dancing in bare feet or shoes that don’t have heels, it’s kind of like returning to your original self.”
Watch Hank Hsueh’s choreography and dance to “Never Had a Friend Like Me” from Aladdin.
Brother develops his choreographic voice
Hsueh’s younger brother Hank is also a choreographer and dancer based in Tokyo. He, too, will perform his own style in Vancouver.
In a Zoom interview with Pancouver, Hank reveals that he hated dancing as a young boy because he associated it with weakness and femininity.
“My mom still pushed me,” Hank says in English with a laugh. “She still forced me to do it. That’s how I started.”
He also points out that his mother rushes to help others when tragedy strikes, whether it’s a typhoon or an earthquake.
However, unlike his sister and mother, Hank is not a flamenco dancer. He studied classical ballet, which he integrates with jazz, hip-hop, and breakdance in his choreography for The Ballet Show.
“The style of my choreography is very different from my mother and my sister,” Hank tells Pancouver over Zoom.
The company is headed by Kaito Yamamoto, who was his roommate when they studied dance at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet in New York City. That’s where Hank learned how to speak Japanese.
Whereas the women in the family emphasize artistry, Hank injects a great deal of entertainment and razzle-dazzle into his work. He acknowledges that his sister and his mom worried for a while about the direction his career was headed, given that he focused on classical ballet as a student. But earlier this year, his mom visited him in Japan and felt more reassured by what she witnessed.
“She finally understands that ‘Okay, my son is not doing something wrong,’ ” Hank relates. “That’s a good thing.”
Watch Hank Hseuh’s choreography to the song “Abyss” by Yungblud.
Toronto Spark contributor Ann Cheng translated the interview with Lian Ho; Toronto Spark associate editor becky tu translated the interview with Hsueh Yu-Hsien.
TAIWANfest Toronto will present Flamenco de Formosa at 7:30 p.m. at the Fleck Dance Theatre at Harbourfront Centre. For tickets and more information, visit the TAIWANfest Toronto website.
Learn more about diverse communities from the Toronto Spark website. Follow the Toronto Spark on X @TOSparkOfficial.
