Beautifully Challenging

Beijing was in the world’s spotlight for most of the summer, but for 52 Wichitans Taiwan has been their focus.

Forty Wichita State performance arts students and 12 faculty and guests made the 14-hour flight from the Midwest to Taiwan on May 19 for a 10-day working trip. The students toured the country, performing four times in three different cities — Taichung, Tainan and Taipei.

Nick Johnson, associate professor and director of dance at WSU, was one of the faculty members who worked on organizing the trip. “I’ve always felt that the final stage of a dancer’s education is stage performance — and to go away and do it is beautifully challenging,” he says.

The genesis for the trip came from Stephanie Thibeault, a former WSU faculty member who spent a residency with the Taiwan Sport University Dance Company. At the time, the company was planning to tour in Oklahoma. Thibeault and Johnson suggested that the dance group perform at WSU as well. Connections were made, and this summer’s return trip was set in motion.

Because of the huge cost, Johnson originally thought that WSU organizers would have to pick only a few students for the performance tour. But he didn’t want to divide the dance program into those who went to Taiwan and those who didn’t. He also wanted to include what he calls “extraneous performers,” those who are music theater or theater majors in the trip.

So they started fundraising. With the help of the Student Government Association, Provost Gary Miller, Pat McLeod with the Center for Management Development and many other patron supporters, a majority of the performers who wanted to go were able to make the trip. Some of the students had never been on a plane, some had never been outside of Kansas and only a handful had been out of the country.

Taiwanese food came as a shock to many. “I think some of them lived on rice for 10 days,” Johnson says with a laugh. But many were brave enough to try several of the dishes, which included a great deal of seafood.

One of the most valuable experiences for the students was adapting to unfamiliar stages. They were troopers, reports Johnson. Even if there were technical challenges with the stages, the students were excited to be there and to show their talents.

One of the dances the group performed was “Beyond Words,” which is about autism. The students performed this at a special-needs school in Taichung. Many of the 400 children at the performance were autistic. For Johnson that performance was a high point of the trip.

“The piece was so well received,” he says. “I think it was because when we introduced the piece and said ‘this is about autism,’ there were murmurs and cries within the crowd. I think the children with autism understood that this is about them.” 

When the WSU students arrived at the Taiwan Sport University, they were treated like VIPs — there was a red carpet for them and, at the end of the welcoming ceremony, dancing dragons and fireworks in their honor.

“The way that the people treated us there really humbled me,” says Genny Rounkles, a dance performance major. “They are a very accepting people and that definitely made me think about how I react when I meet someone new now.”

Everyone who went on the trip was taken by the warmth of the Taiwanese people. The group was greeted with gifts to break the social ice, explains Sabrina Vasquez, a faculty member in the School of Performing Arts. Things like good luck charms, teapots and T-shirts were given to group members.

Yet the trip was a working one, Johnson says. The dancers not only performed but also took master classes at a number of the universities they visited. Some students, including Rounkles, took a traditional Chinese dance class, while others took modern dance or ballet. WSU faculty taught master classes of jazz and hip-hop to the Taiwanese students.

“I was happy to be able to share with the students the experience of this life — of touring and performing,” says Vasquez. “You can only do that through experience. To see that actual learning happening right in front of me, I
loved it.”

The trip was an eye-opening one for the students. Rounkels and Amy Simonson, another dance performance student, both say the trip reinforced their love of dance and made them want to tour more.

“Dance is dance, no matter where you go,” Simonson says. “Even if you go to a completely different country with completely different people — when you’re in a dance classroom together it’s like you’ve known each other forever.”