It’s been a long journey. Bu­la­re­yaung Pa­gar­lava has been on the road home ever since he decided in 1995 to stop going by his Chinese name Guo Jun­ming and to use his Aboriginal name, and it’s been 20 years now. As the singer Sena­yan remarked to him, “You can’t get back home in an instant just by wanting to be there.”

In February, more than 200 people, including singer Deserts Chang and Aboriginal musician Ara Kimbo, took part in the opening ceremony for the Bulareyaung Dance Company.

For a lecture at the 2011 ­TEDxTaipei event, a sepia photograph of a young boy, eyes closed and hands raised, face graced with a smile, tells the story of the starting point of Bu­la­re­yaung’s life in dance. In 1985, Lin Hwai-min’s Cloud Gate Dance Theatre performed their classic work Legacy at the Tai­tung Cultural Center, and Bu­­la­­re­­yaung, who attended with his elder sister, was deeply moved as he watched the rich and flowing movements of the dancers. After he returned home, the brilliant performance continually floated through his head, and—only 12 years old—he took a piece of paper, wrote on it in large characters “Dance to a Kingdom of My Own, Be the Next Lin Hwai-min,” and stuck it on his wall, formally declaring his wish to live in the world of dance.

But his father did not approve. Bu­la­re­yaung’s only option was to use his break time at school to run over to his sister’s dance class and watch through the windows. At least in this way he could do something, however small, to appease his aspiration to dance. Three years passed in this way.

Touched by this dedication, the teacher of the dance class told Bu­la­re­yaung on the down low that Tso­ying (Zuo­ying) Senior High School in Kao­hsiung was recruiting students for their dance program. Bu­la­re­yaung lied to his parents, telling them he was going to Kao­hsiung to take the entrance exam for a different high school. When the results came out, Bu­la­re­yaung had passed with flying colors and entered the dance class at Zuo­ying. But Kao­hsiung, some 200 kilometers from home, was a completely new world to this young man who had never left home before. And everything around him reminded him again and again that he was different.

The people at his sides were no longer the familiar folks of the Aboriginal community. Once at school, older kids prompted him to speak and then rolled about laughing. It was only then that Bu­la­re­yaung understood that he had a “mountain Aboriginal accent.” Yet he did not get angry, but instead aimed, little by little, to wipe away any indication that he was an indigenous person, and blend in as much and as quickly as possible.

Since deciding to revert to using his indigenous name, Bulareyaung has been on the road home for 20 years. Blessed by a Paiwan shaman, he is now back in his hometown making a fresh start.

During his three years in high school and four more at the then National Institute of the Arts (now the Tai­pei National University of the Arts), Bu­la­re­yaung was in denial about the self that was in his blood. Things began to change only in 1995, just before graduation, when Lo Man-fei, who was Bu­la­re­yaung’s mentor, requested him to do some choreography for her. In order to produce a work that would be authentically his, Bu­la­re­yaung ended up back with the old question, “Who am I?” As a first step in answering it, he decided to revert to using his Aboriginal name. “Handsome and Intelligent” (the meaning of his Chinese name Jun­ming) thus became “Happy Warrior”—Bu­la­re­yaung Pa­gar­lava in Paiwan.

So he had his name back, but what about his inner self? Bu­la­re­yaung, who had been away from his community for such a long time, had put on a label of Aboriginal identity, but his works continued to be drawn from Western dance concepts. He was deeply versed in Western dance theory, but if the subject of tribal traditions ever came up, “I was empty; I didn’t understand a thing.”

The young Bu­la­re­yaung was eager to prove himself, and to realize his dream of becoming a dancer. He had no choice but to shelve any deeper search for his identity. He became a dancer with Cloud Gate, and a choreographer for Cloud Gate 2. He was invited to be a guest choreographer with the Martha Graham Dance Company of the US. With one work after another he established himself first on the national stage, and then proceeded toward the international. Nonetheless, though he now was surrounded by a halo of success, at the end of 2010 he came to a kind of crossroads.

In anticipation of the big New Year’s Eve fireworks show at the Tai­pei 101 building, he and some students of his climbed a hill near the school to get a view of the skyscraper. Yet, as the pyrotechnics burst overhead, he took stock of his still-empty schedule—he did not yet have any major commitments—and, considering that he was usually booked solid with performance activities at home and abroad, he couldn’t help but feel conflicted. Something in his heart was telling him that perhaps it was time to return to the home from which he had been away for so long.

“However, it seemed like Vuvu [the ancestral spirits], were telling me that I wasn’t ready yet.” His schedule, which had originally been empty, quickly filled up. In March, he was invited once again to go to the US to be a guest choreographer for the Martha Graham Dance Company, and he returned to the States in July for the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC, where he staged Landscape 2011 ADF, a work specifically created for the festival. He also took on the work of choreographing La­laksu for the Formosa Aboriginal Song and Dance Troupe, and at the end of the year brought a group of students from the Tai­pei National University of the Arts to perform in Bei­jing and New York. But even though he was running around like crazy, the seed of the idea of returning home had already begun to germinate.

Bu­la­re­yaung recalls that an odd thing happened during the curtain call following the March 2011 Martha Graham performance at the Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater. As the enthusiastic applause of the audience rolled on and on, his thoughts turned to his family in Taiwan. “I was thinking how great it would have been if at that moment the people standing by my side were folks I knew from my hometown indigenous community.” Under the international spotlight, he felt even more certain about the idea of returning home.

After he changed back to his Aboriginal name 20 years ago, many people assumed that Bu­la­re­yaung’s creative work would begin to show more of an Aboriginal flavor. He says, slightly embarrassed, “It’s not that I wouldn’t do it, it’s that I couldn’t do it.” Even though he had produced a couple of works that expressed elements of home, for Bu­la­re­yaung neither precisely captured the deep essence of Aboriginal culture. During his many years of urban life, he actually had few if any Aboriginal friends. “I didn’t ­really have any indigenous ingredients in myself that I could draw on to create with, which is pretty sad.”

But then in 2010 he came into contact with the Formosa Aboriginal Song and Dance Troupe, an organization that is working to extend indigenous culture, and in 2011 and 2013 respectively introduced the works Lalaksu and Pu’ing: Tracing the Atayal Route, bringing him somewhat nearer to home.

In one corner of the dance company’s office, Bulareyaung has placed a photo of his late mentor Lo Man-fei, so she can gaze down on the fruits of her own contributions to dance.

In January 2014, following up a recommendation from a friend, Bulareyaung visited the warehouse building of a disused sugar refinery in Tai­tung City. When he saw the large, long space of roughly 300 square meters, the very high ceilings, and the large open lawns on both sides, the blueprint for a dance troupe began to take shape in his mind. In a mere three days, Bu­la­re­yaung decided to move in and make the building his base.

“You know the old saying about how flowing water naturally cuts its own channel? That was me. I was finally prepared, and I went with the flow.” He says that once the news got out that he was going to return home to found a dance troupe, familiar friends, and even unfamiliar friends, came out in droves to lend a hand. During the month-and-a-half-long preparatory period, equipment was steadily moved into the facility. In the middle of February, the company announced it was auditioning for dancers, attracting more than 50 hopefuls from all over Taiwan and from as far away as Hong Kong and Australia. This reaffirmed Bu­la­re­yaung in his belief, “As long as there are people who want to dance, dance can go anywhere. Marginal Tai­tung will have the opportunity to become an international focal point.”

Just as people are willing to travel halfway around the world to enjoy the works of German choreographer Pina ­Bausch, or just as the American Dance Festival is able to bring together outstanding companies and a knowledgeable and passionate audience, Bu­la­re­yaung has similar dreams for Tai­tung. With the Bu­la­re­yaung Dance Company (BDC) serving as the home base, “In the future we will be able to attract people from all over to Tai­tung to see performances and take their vacations here, and get to know the land where I was born.”

In addition to recruiting and selecting dancers, Bu­la­re­yaung has also been busy rehearsing the work Lake, which will be performed in Taipei and Tainan. Also, to ensure that his own sad experience of being a 12-year-old boy with no opportunity to dance will not be repeated, the BDC has created workshops not only for adults but also for children, so that all the people of Taitung will have the opportunity to dance. “Next up, the BDC will invite local arts and cultural groups to move into our facilities free of charge, and they can participate in our creative work. In the future, the lawns can also be used as outdoor exhibit and performance spaces,” says Bu­la­re­yaung, his eyes beaming as he describes the future he sees before him.

Returning home to “open shop” is for Bu­la­re­yaung a way of giving something back now that he has passed 40 years of age. “In the past all my effort was for myself, but now I hope that my work will benefit others.” Just as during his days at Cloud Gate he was mentored and fostered by his benefactors Lin Hwai-min and Lo Man-fei, Bu­la­re­yaung hopes that he will be able to share his good fortune with others.

“I know I’m insane to be trying to build my dream without money. But I was afraid that it always would be just a dream, so I decided to just do it!” This is what Bu­la­re­yaung wrote on BDC’s official Facebook page on January 13, 2015 by way of a manifesto. Today, just a few short months later, this “insane” choreographer has come home.

You can see the passion for dance in the eyes of these young hoofers. Bulareyaung wants to transmit to them the care, guidance, and warm support he received from so many during the early days of his career.