Tjimur Dance Theatre

"Paiwan Zoo"

Tjimur Dance Theatre, Bearbeitung tanz.dance

26.05.2026

Ljuzem Madiljin is the artistic director of the Tjimur Dance Theatre in Taiwan. Rather than marketing her culture as mere folklore for tourism, she uses modern art as a powerful statement. Ahead of her performances in Dresden and Hamburg, this article explores how she shoulders the responsibility for an entire mountain village and resists the gaze of outsiders.

I-Wen Chang

Dance Scholar

Ljuzem’s Walk

Carolina Lecoq

There are also female chiefs in the world, or: Community cultural leaders married to a chief family. Like Ljuzem Madiljin, a dancer who walks in her ceremonial regalia – heavy to bear, yet worn with pride. The 25 kilogram garment was passed down to her by her ancestors. She is a Paiwan, part of the indigenous population of Taiwan, that island that many speculate is a target for the People’s Republic of China. Madiljin continues to walk and dance undeterred, meeting people as she goes – soon, she will be walking in the idyllic garden city of Hellerau near Dresden, and then in the streets of Hamburg for the Tanztrienniale. This director of the Tjimur Dance Theatre from the far south of Taiwan, previously paid tribute to the indigenous Sámi people of Finland at the site of their former protest by the Oslo harbor basin.

While Taiwan enshrined equal rights for the Indigenous population in its constitution in 1994, it did not officially apologize for the consequences of oppression until 2016. Today, Indigenous people are proudly placed at the forefront of major events, just as Madiljin’s father was when he was expected to perform “native folklore” with his troupe. The next generation refuses to go along with this approach. They no longer want to sell their culture to such forms of tourism.

Instead, they are reclaiming their culture, which has been distorted by folklore and the gaze of outsiders. To do so, they employ the analytical rigor of modernity. The risk they face today is falling into the clutches of the art market. But the Tjimur Dance Theatre must survive, and so must the entire village of Tjimur in the mountains of southern Taiwan. As director of the dance theater, Madiljin is not just responsible for the dance, but for everyone in the village. To understand her situation, imagine New York mayor Zohran Mamdani is also the director of the New York City Ballet. A stroke of luck for the dance theater, perhaps, but an incredible responsibility: far heavier than the 25 kilos that Madiljin’s costume weighs. I-Wen Chang visited Tjimur and found New York in a nutshell.

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The bite of the hundred-pacer snake

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