The U-Theatre Company comes from exotic Taiwan and arrives in Rovereto as a worthy representative of the East in this edition of the Festival. Founded in '88 by Liu Ching-Ming, it finds its first raison d'être in the "U" of its name: a phonetic transcription of a Chinese character that means "excellent" and that in ancient times referred to the term "stage artist". After an experience in the Taiwanese theatre avant-garde and after studying dramaturgy and performing arts in New York, Liu Ching-Ming studied with Jerzy Grotowski, through whose teaching she radically shifted her conception of performance from the narrative towards the body. Back in her home country, she tried her hand at a number of productions and later founded and directed the U-Theatre Company, Taiwan's first group of professional actors defined as 'excellent actors'. Through actor-oriented theatre productions, as is customary in the Chinese art, the members of the Company follow a demanding training programme that, in addition to physical exercises and mountain running, includes the practice of traditional Taiwanese dance, meditation, martial arts such as Tai Chi Chuan and the musical exercise of the drum. All this leads group members to improve themselves as actors, but first and foremost as men, as man is what lies at the heart of U-Theatre. The focus on the quality of life thus makes it possible to achieve more intense and meaningful acting, and in this regard, Liu claims that 'being an actor means making visible and perceptible what is most elaborate in one's existence'. Much of the performers' training takes place outdoors, in the mountains in the suburbs of Taipei. This is also the case for the performances, which thus aim to bring theatre to the people. In '96, Wong Chee-Mun, a master percussionist, joined the company and started to create something new and different from Chinese Opera, characterised by the fusion of two arts: percussion and theatre. The show presented in Rovereto, which will later be staged at the Biennale in Lyon, is The Sound of Ocean, an evocative musical and theatrical performance. It took several years to realise, centred on the mystery of the sound of the ocean, its unfathomable depth, the ebb and flow of its waters. Master Wong Chee-Mun explains that The Sound of Ocean is composed of "vibrations joined together in harmony", like the water of life that feeds our souls. This performance features gongs and drums and is divided into five parts: Collapse, Flowing Walter, Breakers, Listening to the Ocean Heart and The Sound of Ocean. The backbone of this work is based on three moments: Flowing Water that simulates the continuous flowing of water, Listening to the Ocean Heart the experimentation of a prudent calm and serene acceptance of death and The Sound of Ocean that expresses the infinite awakening of life and the eternal peace of death. The performance fully reflects the U-Theatre Company's style of searching for an authentic life from which the actors draw concentration and spiritual strength.
