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Death becomes them

Cloud Gate 2 dancers strutted their stuff in Wu Kuo-chu's Oculus at the National Theater.

Cloud Gate Dance Theater (雲門舞集) artistic director and founder Lin Hwai-min's (林懷民) faith in the two young choreographers he chose for the combined companies' spring program was well-placed, as opening night captivated audiences with two very different pieces.

British choreographer Akram Khan's Lost Shadows opened the show with the scene of a hit-and-run accident: a contorted, broken body laying on the ground, a spreading rivulet of blood and the sounds of clicking cameras and passing traffic. A running woman appears, an iconic image that haunts the piece.

While the accident victim tries to come to grips with what happened to her — and how to move her broken body — we also meet her friend Lisa, Chiu I-wen (邱怡文) — who committed suicide many years ago. There is a short play within the dance: a TV talk show about death featuring Chiu, a professor (who turns out to have been the driver in the hit-and-run accident), an undertaker selling a "miracle" face powder and the show's hostess.

One of the most visually stunning movements is when Khan has the 11 women who perform bulk of the piece in a line along the back of the stage, running forward in place. Then the line moves sideways to the front of the stage before dividing into three lines as some dancers move on and off the stage. Running has never looked so beautiful.

Sun Chia-ying (孫佳瑩) and veteran Chiu were the standouts of the performance. The seemingly reckless abandon with which Sun hurled her body around the stage — especially in her solos — was startling and had you fearing she might actually hurt herself.

In fact, one imagines that all the women have been sporting substantial bruises from the way they repeated threw themselves to the floor, dropping on their right sides full length, before rolling over and up and doing it again.

Khan's piece was a chance to see Cloud Gate's amazing women in a whole new light. And stage designer Lin Keh-hua (林克華) and lighting designer Lee Wan-ling (李琬玲) created a ghostly netherworld that was the perfect home for the lost spirits of Khan's world.

The second half of the program was Wu Kuo-chu's (伍國柱) masterpiece, Oculus, and a chance to see the young dancers of Cloud Gate 2 really strut their stuff.

Wu's meditation on hidden wishes and the desire for love took the audience through an entire day or perhaps even a year, judging by the projection of the sky that filled the backdrop, while the dancers changed from the brightly colored briefs that were their only costumes in the opening scenes to average street wear to coats and scarves at the end.

Wu's choreography was a collection of tics, scratches, hunched shoulders, clasped hands moving around as if stirring a huge pot, flat-footed shuffles, and the occasional childlike leap — a vocabulary that would appear to be light years away from the grace of movement one thinks of as dance. But it would be easy for almost anyone to identify with the awkward shyness of the young couples, who long for a touch and yet are too embarrassed to admit it.

Over the 12 sections of the piece, Wu proved his mastery of the language and the stage, with well-thought-out solos, duets and ensemble pieces that kept the dancers moving at a frenetic pace — counterbalanced by minutes of absolute stillness.

The dancers were justly rewarded for their hard work with enthusiastic cheers (and screams), especially veteran Pan Chieh-yin (潘潔尹), whose solo opened the piece.

"If he [Wu] were still alive this work [Oculus] would tour a lot in Europe … it really deals with the human situation. I don't know if any artistic director will keep it now," Lin said in a previous interview, adding that he intends to keep it in Cloud Gate 2's repertoire and use it as vehicle for taking the second troupe abroad.

Audiences in central and southern Taiwan will have a chance to see Lost Shadows and Oculus as the combined companies hit the road later over the weekends later this month. Performances are scheduled for the Tainan Municipal Culture Center Performance Hall (台南市立文化中心演藝廳) on April 13 and April 14 at 7:45pm; Kaoshiung's National Chiang Kai-shek Culture Center (高雄市中正文化中心) on April 20 and April 21 at 7:45 pm, Taichung's Chungshan Hall (台中市中山堂) on April 27 and April 28 at 7:45 pm, and then in Lin's hometown at the Chiayi Performing Arts Center (嘉義縣表演藝術中心) on May 5 at 7:45 pm and May 6 at 2:45 pm.

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