White scrolls, black clouds and blinding light hung over the dancers of Cloud Gate Dance Theater (雲門舞集) on Saturday night at the National Theater, but all three could not distract from the clean lines and tight control demanded by the abstract trilogy that began the evening.
Cloud Gate founder and artistic director Lin Hwai-min's (林懷民) White X 3 trilogy begins with Fog in the Dream, a piece for three women.
Lin has said that elements of this piece were the inspiration for several of his later works, and this was clear to see, with the white scrolls used in his Cursive trilogy, and the shadow-dancing behind the scrolls that was used to such effect in Cursive 3. The three women, in their solos, duets and pas de trois, effortlessly displayed the strong control, yet airy grace, Lin's choreography demands.
The first of the evening's three premieres, Light in the Dark, begins with several light batons lowered to the stage floor, slowing rising as a couple, dressed in white, enter from a doorway in the back and begin to dance. A black cloth is slowly raised to hover overhead, casting ominous shadows as more dancers enter. The eerie music by Alex Cline completes the otherworldly feel.
As the black cloth is lifted to revel a white scrim, some of the dancers begin slowly crossing backwards across the stage, pulling up the tapes that hold the black floor matting down, creating sharp lines as other dancers, individually and in pairs, dance in the background.
The piece ends with the stage a startling expanse of white. There is a moment's pause and then the company rushes onto the stage to begin part three, Boundless.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CLOUD GATE THEATER
In contrast with the slow mea-sured pace of part one, and the darkness of part two, Boundless is painfully bright (even for the dancers), sharp and energetic.
The final piece on the program, choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava's (布拉瑞揚) Formosa, Island the Beautiful (美麗島) took the audience on an emotional roller-coaster ride that at times was almost too painful to watch, especially in the Dawu Mountain, Our Beautiful Mother segment, where the lone woman dancer is heaved repeatedly into the air by her nine male companions, hair flying straight up and mouth open in almost a rictus scream, before she is dropped like a rag doll onto the floor.
After the show, Bula said the songs were painful for him.
Formosa begins with folksinger Kimbo Hu (
Perhaps motions would be a better word than dance, for the dancer twitches almost spasmodically at times, writhes on the floor, and throws his body up in the air.
In Beautiful Grains of Rice, 10 men enter the stage, bodies bent, feet thumping in rhythm. Their pounding beat is the repetition -- along with the left arm thrown up toward the head -- that drives this segment on, calling to mind both Aboriginal circle dances and heavy footfalls of men marching off to the mines or rock quarries.
After the pain of Dawu Mountain, Formosa closes on a happier, lighter note to the song by the same name, with 16 dancers gracefully spinning and floating around the stage.
Formosa is uneven and perhaps too message-driven, but there are very strong elements in it that leave you wanting to see more of Bula's work. The piece was heartily cheered by the opening-night audience. So Kimbo returned to the piano and began singing Formosa again. The sing-a-long picked up strength as it went along and then the dancers came back on stage to reprise the final segment.
Another curtain call and the audience still wanted more, so Kimbo obliged with a final song before the theater lights went up and the audience reluctantly began filing out.
Cloud Gate is at the National Theater through next Sunday afternoon, before moving to Taichung for performances on May 5 and May 6, and Kaohsiung on May 12 and May 13.
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