Ku and Dancers was established in Taiwan in 1993 by dancer, choreographer, teacher Ming-Shen Ku. She is an active dancer and choreographer since she received her MFA degree from University of Illinois and came back to Taiwan in 1987.
The debut production for the company was launched in 1993 in the National Theater, Taipei. As one of the most avant-garde dance companies in Taiwan, Ku and Dancers has been interacting with many local dance companies, and performing internationally including Asia, Europe, USA and Australia.
In additional to Ms. Ku's choreography works, the company is known as the only professional dance company devotes itself to the development and exploration of improvisation performance in Taiwan. Many internationally renowned improvisers have been invited to participate in the improvisation workshops hosted by the company. Improvisation and contact improvisation are used as the foundation of basic training of the company. The company employs structured improvisation as a performing technique since 2000. The performances were usually set up in an unconventional dance space, such as galleries, museums, parks, public plazas, culture center hallways. Ku & Dancers are devoted to the development of new audience and promotion of improvisation performance.
In recent years, Ku & Dancers has been invited to work with computer animation director Yau Chen to explore how the computer technology can help to the performing arts. It’s a challenging and yet intriguing task. The works include "Dilatation", "Me & My Shadow" and works presented by Image In Motion Dance Theater "Not a Love Story" and "@Dream". We will continue the experiments in the future.