NUMERICAL SERIES 15 & 18

In August 2023, choreographer Tao Ye was invited by the Netherlands Dance Theatre (NDT) to create a piece for 15 dancers from the company’s first ensemble. In close collaboration with composer Xiao He, he choreographed three highly demanding sections arranged in a triangular formation. He associates the triangle with stability, structure and numerology. 15 explores a new body language based on Tao Ye’s circular movement system. He developed three live physical soundscapes inspired by rhythmic variation and richness: tapping,  falling and vocalization. Combined with the dancers’ movements of Wringing Twist, turning, bending and folding, 15 evokes the experience of relaxation and  tension, consumption and regeneration, concentration and meditation. 

Tao Ye’s latest choreography, 18, continues his Numerical Series. The piece takes the nine-square  grid as its spatial framework to investigate transformations between squares and circles, the  infinitude of movement as well as the poetic resonance of calligraphy. The dancers treat space like  rice paper, conceiving their bodies as brushstrokes, inscribing the classical poem Xing Ying Shen  (Form, Shadow and Spirit) by the Eastern Jin poet Tao Yuanming. Often described as ‘dance on paper’, Chinese calligraphy embodies a philosophical art form. On stage, 18 dancers form two sets of nine operating in correspondence. Using their bodies, they  embody and ‘transcribe’ the three sections of the poem. Each grid’s movement vocabulary integrates  nine fundamental calligraphic gestures—such as lifting, sinking, pausing and cutting—and translates  them into kinetic principles. Unlike previous works, 18 focuses on smaller, more subtle movements.  In this piece, the circular, flowing aesthetics of dance, calligraphy and sonic rhythm converge, entering into dialogue with the philosophical inquiry  of Xing Ying Shen. With breath as rhythm, the spine as axis and the centre of gravity as orbit, the work reconfigures and expands the expressive potential of the contemporary  body.