Tanztheater des Staatstheaters Darmstadt more than lived up to the dance theater portion of their name on Friday night with artistic director Lin Mei-hong’s (林美虹) Schwanengesang (Swan Song) at the National Theater.
It was a brilliant piece of theater, even though the number of strangulations was exceedingly high for a dance production, and some of the scenes will surely give viewers nightmares for months to come. Forget Giselle, with its “mad” scene and vengeful Willis, Lin has conjured up a gothic horror tale of love, obsession, madness and death that will be hard to beat — all the more amazing for being performed by a cast of just 15 dancers. George Rodenbach’s novel Bruges-la-Morte may have been published in 1892, but at its heart is a tale for the ages, and Lin’s choreography gave it a very modern edge.
Most of the dancers played multiple roles, beginning as doppelgangers to the protagonist Hugo (danced by Simone Deriu) and his wife Marie (danced by Andressa Miyazato), dressed in identical suits for the men and a platinum, 1930s permed wig and a spaghetti-strap, long slip dress for the women. It was hard to tell who was who, and that was the point. The story of Hugo’s obsessive love for his dead wife could have been about any one of them, or all of us. The 10 dancers who were not the leads also performed as a flock of nuns, then swans and then demons — some of them must have been changing costumes right in the wings.
The other three leads were also exceptional: Tatiana Marchini as Hugo’s housekeeper Barbe, whose devotion turns to unrequited passion; the long-limbed Eszter Kozar as Mariette — the Marie look-alike who Hugo becomes besotted with — and especially Laszlo Kocisis as the specter of the dead Marie. Each time Kocisis appeared in his Kabuki-white body paint and slip dress, with a long grayish clump of hair trailing down one side of his head, he would tiptoe on, arms upraised as if posing for a Grecian urn drawing, looking somewhat lost. Then his torso would contract, the arms would tilt awkwardly and his face contort — you could see Marie’s body decaying with every move he took. The black-robed and hooded Bengt Ekerot may have created an indelible impression as Death in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, but Kocsis has created an image that will be hard for anyone who sees him to forget.
Thomas Gruber, who did the staging and costumes, designed a deceptively simple set that was little more than a large black platform that took up most of the stage, with a narrow strip of a canal in front of it, a large wardrobe that doubled as a door front and a bench for the judge from hell, noose-like bell pulls and a panel of lilies that hugged one side of the proscenium.
The edgy, jazz score was by Michael Erhad.
As a choreographer, Lin appears to be at the height of her powers. She has created a very dark work, but the darkness never overwhelms the audience, and at Schwanengesang’s core are some amazingly beautiful duets and solos.
Lin has been artistic director of the Tanztheater des Staatstheaters Darmstadt since 2004 — and at the Dortmund theater for five years before that — and it’s hard to believe it has taken so long to bring this terrific Taiwanese choreographer and her company to Taiwan. Given the economics and scheduling of dance companies and Darmstadt’s commitments at home, it may be too much to hope that the company could make an annual trip to Taipei. But there should be a law that Lin and crew have to come back at least every two years.
On April 26, The Lancet published a letter from two doctors at Taichung-based China Medical University Hospital (CMUH) warning that “Taiwan’s Health Care System is on the Brink of Collapse.” The authors said that “Years of policy inaction and mismanagement of resources have led to the National Health Insurance system operating under unsustainable conditions.” The pushback was immediate. Errors in the paper were quickly identified and publicized, to discredit the authors (the hospital apologized). CNA reported that CMUH said the letter described Taiwan in 2021 as having 62 nurses per 10,000 people, when the correct number was 78 nurses per 10,000
As we live longer, our risk of cognitive impairment is increasing. How can we delay the onset of symptoms? Do we have to give up every indulgence or can small changes make a difference? We asked neurologists for tips on how to keep our brains healthy for life. TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH “All of the sensible things that apply to bodily health apply to brain health,” says Suzanne O’Sullivan, a consultant in neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, and the author of The Age of Diagnosis. “When you’re 20, you can get away with absolute
May 5 to May 11 What started out as friction between Taiwanese students at Taichung First High School and a Japanese head cook escalated dramatically over the first two weeks of May 1927. It began on April 30 when the cook’s wife knew that lotus starch used in that night’s dinner had rat feces in it, but failed to inform staff until the meal was already prepared. The students believed that her silence was intentional, and filed a complaint. The school’s Japanese administrators sided with the cook’s family, dismissing the students as troublemakers and clamping down on their freedoms — with
As Donald Trump’s executive order in March led to the shuttering of Voice of America (VOA) — the global broadcaster whose roots date back to the fight against Nazi propaganda — he quickly attracted support from figures not used to aligning themselves with any US administration. Trump had ordered the US Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that funds VOA and other groups promoting independent journalism overseas, to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” The decision suddenly halted programming in 49 languages to more than 425 million people. In Moscow, Margarita Simonyan, the hardline editor-in-chief of the
RSS