Toad Mountain: Work-in-Progress by Jie-Hung Connie Shiau

Expe­ri­ence the cul­mi­na­tion of Jie-Hung Con­nie Shi­au’s Dance Res­i­den­cy at the Arts Cen­ter on Gov­er­nors Island. 

Jie-Hung Con­nie Shiau’s Toad Moun­tain draws on Tai­wanese folk­lore to explore the hid­den inte­ri­or spaces where we store mem­o­ry, silence, instinct, and grief, the pieces of our­selves we pre­serve, pro­tect, or aban­don in the name of self-preser­va­tion, some by con­scious choice and oth­ers slow­ly, invis­i­bly, over time. Folk­lore has long served as a ves­sel for what a soci­ety can­not always speak aloud, and Shiau’s process returns to those myth­ic land­scapes not as nos­tal­gia but as mir­rors, an attempt to uncov­er where we hide, what we bury, and what we might final­ly be ready to release and reconcile.

Jie-Hung Con­nie Shi­au is a dancer, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, and teacher based in New York City. Raised in Tainan, Tai­wan. Shi­au has pre­sent­ed works at Hub­bard Street Dance Chicago’s 43^rd vir­tu­al sea­son, New Chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Project in Taipei, Tai­wan, Loy­ola Uni­ver­si­ty, Hub­bard Street Dance Chica­go sum­mer inten­sives, SUNY Pur­chase Col­lege, Lit­tle Island Dance Fes­ti­val, Agnes Varis Per­form­ing Arts Cen­ter, Arts On Site, Abrons Arts Cen­ter, and Sum­mer For The City at Lin­coln Center.

This work-in-progress show­ing marks the cul­mi­na­tion of Shiau’s Arts Cen­ter Dance Res­i­den­cy. LMCC’s Dance Res­i­den­cies are made pos­si­ble by sup­port from Dance Reflec­tions by Van Cleef & Arpels and the Mertz Gilmore Foun­da­tion. Learn more about the Dance Res­i­den­cy pro­gram here.