REVIEW: bulabulay mun? how are you? - Dancing Through the Tide of Memory

©️Tjimur Dance Company, photography by Ba Sa-xi

In a time when, as the Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky writes, “in the street of money, in the city of money, in the country of money, our great country of money, we (forgive us) lived happily during the war,” it feels urgent and necessary to be confronted by a work that refuses to look away.

bulabulay mun? / how are you?, presented by Tjimur Dance Theatre, explores memory, landscape, and violence through the lens of the Paiwan people. Rooted in the histories of Mudan village and the surrounding coastal region in southern Taiwan, the performance draws on the traumatic 1874 Mudan shipwreck and its long colonial aftermath under Japanese rule, reflecting on the ripples of violence passed down through generations. It reflects on the lingering effects of violence across generations, inviting audiences to re-engage with histories that continue to shape the present through song and embodied movement.

The stage is minimal. Projections of oceans, mountains, and shifting natural vistas fill the background. Sound rises and falls like breath, waves, wind, or something in between. Two female and three male performers (Ching-hao YANG, Ljaucu TAPURAKAC, Sheng-hsiang CHIANG, Tzu-en MENG, Zepulj KAZANGILAN) move with a curved wooden object, part oar, part canoe, evoking navigation, survival, or ritual. A hand gestures with care. A leg lifts slowly. The spine curves and extends. These movements feel like stepping through water or drifting with a tide, where body and water flow as one. As the performers begin to sing a traditional folk song, a sense of calm gives way to something more charged.

Then the atmosphere grows tense. The wood, once a tool of balance, becomes an instrument of punishment. Limbs twist and tangle. Breathing becomes laboured. Each gesture seems to resist, to push back. Yet alongside this struggle, hands join to form mountain-like shapes that evoke interdependence and quiet resistance. The folk song repeats, gathering emotional weight with every return.

When the violence fades, new emotional layers unfold and complexities deepen. At last, the dancers hold hands and sing a new, joyful melody. Laughter and playfulness emerge as they dance on top of a length of traditional red fabric. Yet this moment of celebration is slowly engulfed by the sound of waves once more: a reminder that nothing here is untouched by the sea or its memory.

This is a work about maritime cosmologies, collective memory, and the fragility of the human condition. It stretches space and emotion far beyond the confines of a studio. Much of this impact comes through the powerful sensory design: the lighting and technical coordination by I-shun LEE, visual imagery by Hung-chun WANG, and the immersive sound and video engineering by Wei-yu HUANG. Together, they create a world that slips between time and place, part ceremony, part warning.

Founded in 2006, Tjimur Dance Theatre is one of Taiwan’s leading indigenous performance companies. Under the direction of artistic director Ljuzem MADILJIN and choreographer Baru MADILJIN, the company has developed a distinctive movement language through deep engagement with Paiwan communities. Their choreography transforms oral histories and cultural memory into contemporary performance rooted in lived experience. Known as “Tjimur Physical Skills,” this methodology involves living and practising within indigenous villages, visiting places affected by the past, and confronting the raw forces of nature. The resulting performances go beyond re-enactment or abstraction; they embody and communicate knowledge, memory, and pain.

“Those who have never experienced that specific war in history, how can they describe or imagine it?” This question guided the company at the start of the creative process in 2019, a time when the world was grappling with the isolation and disconnection brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a kind of global war, in which even asking “how are you?” became fraught. As the work evolved, its purpose widened: to reach out to countries carrying wounds, and to those still enduring harm. To acknowledge those who have suffered in any form, and those who are suffering now.

Perhaps the real question is not whether we can live happily during war, but whether we can remember, and still choose to sing.

★★★★

For more information about the show, please visit: https://theplace.org.uk/events/autumn-25-tjimur-dance-theatre-bulabulay-mun
For more information about Dance Umbrella, please visit: https://danceumbrella.co.uk/event/tjimur-dance-theatre-bulabulay-mun-film/

Credits

Artistic Director: Ljuzem MADILJIN
Choreographer and Costume Designer: Baru MADILJIN
Rehearsal Directors and Performers: Ching-hao YANG, Ljaucu TAPURAKAC

Performers: Sheng-hsiang CHIANG, Tzu-en MENG, Zepulj KAZANGILAN

Technical Coordinator and Lighting Designer: I-shun LEE

Visual Image Designer: Hung-chun WANG

Style Photographers: Jun-yong LIN, Ba Sa-xi

Traditional Song Instructors: Xiao-hui WANG, De-sheng YE, the people from Mudan Township

Director of Photography and Production Supervisor: Maurice LAI Yu-man (HoShunKing Artistic Workshop)

Costume Production: Bi-yun MAI, Lazurite SHATAO

Copywriting: Zhen-xia WENG

Video and Sound Engineer: Wei-yu HUANG

Lighting Technical Coordinator: Yu-fei HUANG

Sports Massage Therapist: Jhih-jie HUANG

Company Manager: Shu-ting CHIU

International Project Producer: Jih-wen YEH

Taiwan Adviser: Ministry of Culture, Bureau of Cultural Heritage

Taiwan Organiser: Pingtung County Government

Taiwan Performer: Tjimur Dance Theatre

The production of this show is commissioned by the Pingtung County Government. Special thanks to the people from Mudan Township.

Supported by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan.