Dancers: Miki Orihara, Ching-I Chang, Hui-Wang Zhang, Jie-Hung Connie Shiau
Rehearsal Director/Dramaturg: Nico Li
Composer: Jerome Begin
Costume Designer: Victoria Bek
Lighting Designer: Asami Morita
What parts of ourselves do we lock away in order to survive?
Through the lens of Taiwanese folklore, Toad Mountain explores the hidden interior spaces where we store memory, silence, instinct, and grief. The pieces of ourselves we preserve, protect or abandon in the name of self-preservation. Some of these choices are conscious. Others happen slowly, invisibly, over time.
Folklore has always been a vessel for the repressed and forgotten collective unconscious memory. Myths carry what societies cannot always speak aloud. In this process, we will return to those mythic landscapes not as nostalgia, but as mirrors. An attempt to uncover where we hide, what we bury, and what we might finally be ready to release and reconcile.
Toad Mountain was developed, in part, during a Baryshnikov Arts Center Residency.
Support for the development and presentation of this work is provided in part through the James and Martha Duffy Fund.
All details subject to change.
Jie-Hung Connie Shiau (Choreographer/Performer) is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Raised in Tainan, Taiwan, Shiau has presented works at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s 43rd virtual season, New Choreographer Project in Taipei, Taiwan, Loyola University, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago summer intensives, SUNY Purchase College, Little Island Dance Festival, Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, Arts On Site, Abrons Arts Center, and Summer For The City at Lincoln Center
Shiau has worked as a collaborator with an array of companies, including Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham, GALLIM, Hélène Simoneau Danse, MeenMoves, Adam Barruch/Anatomiae Occultii, Kevin Wynn Works, and Obremski/Works. She has performed works by Crystal Pite, Ohad Naharin, Lou Conte, Kyle Abraham, Johan Inger, Twyla Tharp, Brian Brooks, Peter Chu, Robyn Mineko Williams, Sharon Eyal, Fernando Melo, Alejandro Cerrudo, Hélène Simoneau, Sameena Mitta, Rena Butler, Spencer Theberge, Jermaine Spivey, Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Alice Klock, Hanna Kiel, Osnel Delgado, Adam Barruch, Jesse Obremski, and the late Kevin Wynn.
In addition, Shiau was one of the Fall 2025 Residency Artists at Baryshnikov Arts Center. Shiau’s dance film Facing was an Official Selection of Dance on Camera, and Official Selection and Best Choreographer of Cyprus Dance Film Festival in 2025. She was the leading female dancer in Huang Ruo’s opera, Angel Island, which premiered at BAM Strong’s Harvey Theater in January 2024. Her dance film Greener Grass was a semi-finalist in the London International Web & Shorts Film Festival in 2021. Shiau was a recipient of a Chicago Dancemaker Forum Greenhouse Program award in 2019, Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2018, Honorable Mention for a Jadin Wong Award for Emerging Asian American Dancer in 2014, and Reverb Dance Festival Dancer Award in 2014. More info at jiehungconnieshiau.com
Photo by Jesse Obremski.