In his classic essay "Thinking Like a Mountain," nature writer Aldo Leopold recalls when, in his youth, he lifted up his rifle to kill a wolf, assuming that this would help the deer thrive in the mountains. He didn't realize at the time that this was a short-sighted, narrow and erroneous view. When wolves die in large numbers, deer populations explode, eating up shrubs and saplings on the mountain; in turn, the denuded mountains lead to dust storms and landslides.

Leopold came to realize that humans should learn to "think like a mountain." The mountains have lived long enough to know that it's important for wolves to be allowed to live and howl freely, because all of nature's creatures live in an interdependent state.

(left to right) Japanese dance master Midori Ishii's Brandenburg performed in 2007, Eleo Pomare's Limousine for Janis in 2008, and Katsuko Orita's Water Moon in 2010.

The Earth, Everybody's Home II: Thinking Like a Mountain is the theme and title of this year's Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Festival. After the Tohoku earthquake, dancers from Japan, Australia and the United States decided to join forces in a dance exchange whose theme was the relationship between man and nature.

The Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Festival began in 2006 in commemoration of the death of Taiwanese modern dance pioneer Tsai Jui-yueh the year before. It's a platform for international dance and cultural exchange, a project carried out by dancers from Taiwan and abroad, with a different theme each year.

Since 2009, the focus of the dance festival has gone through major changes. After Taiwan was battered by Typhoon Morakot, attention turned to concern for the land and memories of human connections, with the 2009 theme Note to a Green Taiwan: Remembering Typhoon Morakot. In 2010, The Earth, Everybody's Home I further expounded on the beautiful symbiosis between man and nature.

Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Foundation chairperson Ondine Hsiao says that they were right in the middle of deciding what the theme for this year should be when the Tohoku earthquake occurred. "We knew at that moment what we would do," she says. With apologies, she appealed to Japanese modern dance maestro Katsuko Orita to choreograph a piece: "Although I knew it would be painful for Orita, we felt it a responsibility for this major event to be the theme. Since part of the purpose of art is introspection and healing, it's necessary to face up to it." The artist had no choice but to confront the cruel reality head on.

(left to right) Japanese dance master Midori Ishii's Brandenburg performed in 2007, Eleo Pomare's Limousine for Janis in 2008, and Katsuko Orita's Water Moon in 2010.

Orita's mother is Japanese master choreographer Midori Ishii, designated a Living National Treasure. Ishii was the teacher of Tsai Jui-yueh, and Hsiao was both Tsai's student and daughter-in-law. Thus, this Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Festival is an occasion in which these linked generations of dancers can exchange ideas and life experiences through creativity.

Orita named her dance piece A Place to Live. At the start of the piece, upbeat music and the dancers' high-spirited motions signify a peaceful life before the quake. Afterwards, when the disaster victims find surviving relatives and neighbors, they can't help but weep and embrace each other in joy and amazement.

Hsiao tells us that Orita's intention for this part of the piece was not to convey sorrow, since what she saw during this horrific disaster wasn't death, but new life. The ultimate idea the piece is meant to express is the precious value of the survivors, and their responsibility to live on. Says Orita, many people were separated from their family and friends after the earthquake and tsunami, wondering whether they were still alive. It was a terrible hardship, but despite this, one could still see the disaster victims extending helping hands to those in need.

To Orita, dance is not just bodily movements; it takes an integration of the dancers' thinking and the central spirit of the dance piece to represent every facet of the work. So when Hsiao was selecting Taiwanese dancers for Orita's piece, she would ask the applicants what their views of the Tohoku catastrophe were.

Among those auditioning was a male dancer who suddenly started weeping, to her great surprise. It so happened that Taiwan had issued its first tsunami warning after the great quake struck in Japan's Miyagi Prefecture, and since the dancer's home was in Hualien, he recalled the scene of his family fleeing in fear. The memories were so fresh that he couldn't help but break out in tears during the interview.

(left to right) Japanese dance master Midori Ishii's Brandenburg performed in 2007, Eleo Pomare's Limousine for Janis in 2008, and Katsuko Orita's Water Moon in 2010.

Although A Place to Live was created because of what happened in Japan, it is also imbued with Hsiao's desire to make the people of Taiwan ponder social problems through what they see. She hopes the audience can follow the contentment, fear, relief, and gratitude expressed in the dancers' movements, and from there renew their sense of the preciousness of life and reflect on lifestyles that are overly dependent on material goods and wasteful of resources.

The second dance piece is Australian dancer Elizabeth Dalman's contribution Bride in the Desert 2. Dalman, who has for years been concerned about environmental issues, released Bride in the Desert 1 last year, in which she posed as a bride married to the land. The relationship between humans and the land is seen as a marital contract building a partnership of coexistence.

The third dance piece is Blues for the Jungle by the late American black activist dancer Eleo Pomare, which caused a great deal of controversy at its 1966 debut. The dance's timeline starts from the black slave auctions of old and develops up to modern times, the oppressed describing their fierce feelings of despair, hope, and rebellion. In it Pomare expresses the vivid, concrete details of the seething anger toward social injustice through his artistry in a shocking way.

On the stage, robust-bodied slaves waiting to be sold are bound in iron shackles, unable to move. Implied is also the question: "Has humanity also sold and subjugated the earth like a slave?"

The dance festival will also re-stage Tsai Jiu-yueh's We Love Our Taiwan, which Tsai composed in 1946 aboard a ship taking her back home to Taiwan from Japan. The dance expresses the then 25-year-old Tsai's great expectations about her journey and return to her homeland, echoing a homecoming theme in this year's production.

Each Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Festival is characterized by a strong sense of social consciousness. The festival isn't simply about artistic and aesthetic appreciation; beyond the moving performances is the hope that the public will give more attention to weighty topics.

"Each dance festival is a statement on the times," says Hsiao. This year the message the event will convey is the successful transfer of the land to the next generation, so that our children and grandchildren will also be able to live well on this land and have safe places to come home to. For this, we all share responsibility.

Where: Rose Monument, Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Studio (No. 10, Lane 48, Zhongshan N. Rd. Sec. 2, Taipei; 02-25237547

When: November 4-6, 2011

The theme of this year's festival is The Earth, Everybody's Home II: Thinking Like a Mountain. The dancers are currently intensifying their rehearsals, hoping that their performances will inspire more concern for the global environment.