I left the National Theater on Friday night deeply impressed by the work of four men I had never heard of until a few weeks ago: Norman McLaren, Michel Lemieux, Victor Pilon and Peter Trosztmer.
Norman (A Tribute to Norman McLaren) centers on the work of Scottish-Canadian animation pioneer and two-time Oscar winner Norman McLaren, who died 12 years ago but was creating films until the very end. What a creative life it was. McLaren could make a single line dance, spin and captivate, to say nothing of squares, spheres, rhomboids, hens, chairs, men and scratches. The show utilizes a small black-box set, holographic projections of people and objects, film clips and one live performer — dancer Trosztmer.
Norman, staged in Taipei as part of the Taiwan International Festival, is a technical tour-de-force that never loses sight of the humanity at the heart of McLaren’s work. The show is also proof of the adage: Everything old is new again. Grainy filmstrips sizzled and popped with a rhythm that made you tap your feet. Hip-hop DJs who thought they created something new with scratching records owe a big debt to McLaren, who was scratching film negatives decades ago to make a film that would create its own score when run through a projector.
Lemieux, Pilon, Trosztmer and choreographer Thea Patterson created a 100-minute show that weaves biographical information, film clips, music and movement together seamlessly. Trosztmer’s character is working on a biography of the animator and, through Lemieux and Pilon’s innovative technology, interviews several of McLaren’s former colleagues at the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada.
But the fun really begins when Trosztmer get the key to the NFB’s film vault. When the vault door opens a wave of animated creatures knock Trosztmer over or plow right through him: snakes, squiggles, chickens, a parade of cats, and pith-helmeted soldiers. Trosztmer, who was on stage for all but about 10 minutes of the show, interacts and dances with these creations so realistically that you believe he is waltzing with green glowing spheres and being squeezed by multiplying vertical lines.
While the orchestra level of the National Theater wasn’t as packed for Norman as it has been for some of the other shows Taiwan International Festival, the upper levels appeared to have scores of high school and college students who were buzzing as they left for home. One can only hope that more than a few of them have been inspired to challenge artistic barriers the way McLaren did and, Lemieux, Pilon and Trosztmer are doing now.
Over at the Novel Hall on Saturday, the show was smaller and quieter than Norman, but Vipashayana (觀。自在) by Jade & Artists Dance Troupe (肢體音符舞團), was no less well-crafted. As with Norman, it was the images that choreographer Jade Hua (華碧玉) created, rather than particular movements, that I remembered most.
The dancers showed a uniformity of technique and strength that is not often seen in Taiwan’s smaller dance companies.
The show began with the 10 women, clad in workout clothes, seated or standing about the front of the stage. One dancer holds a white balloon, which she hands to an audience member. The other dancers move through the auditorium, apparently searching for something or someone, before leaving the original balloon holder alone with her balloon. When the stage curtain finally parts, there is one woman trapped inside a giant plastic ball, while the others move around small cityscapes made of clear plastic cubes. The movements of the woman in the ball become more frantic until she is repeatedly throwing herself at the sides and collapsing onto the floor.
Part two, “State of Confusion,” begins with black stage curtain being raised about a meter, revealing a wall of bamboo rods and the feet and legs of the dancers as they stamp about flamenco style. From the flamenco, the dancers begin to run and throw themselves onto their backs to glide across the floor. I don’t remember the transition, but I remember the gliding.
Part three, “Self Realization” saw the company’s 10 dancers clad in white pants and tops, move through a series of slow tai chi-, Buddhist meditation- and yoga-inspired poses that at one point had most of them in prolong shoulder-stand poses, until just one was left, illuminated from below, a vision of purity.
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