ABSTRACT
We start in 1981, when the Education Ministry of the Central Government in Taiwan decided to set up special programs for particularly gifted students in dance, music, and the visual arts. They began with nine programs, five in the elementary schools and four at the junior high level. One of those was in Kaohsiung. Three years later, when the first junior high class graduated, they found that there was nowhere for those students to go, so the government looked at the four senior high schools in this city. One of those was only for boys, another only for girls, and a third was already committed to Visual Arts, so Tsoying got Dance by default. We received the announcement that we were to build a dance program in June, and school was to start in September, so we had to do everything to set up the first high school dance program in Taiwan, including auditions, during the summer.
