On Thursday the Beijing Beijing Opera Company’s (北京京劇院) youth troupe opened a four-day series of performances at Taipei’s Metropolitan Hall (城市舞台) designed to showcase the breadth and depth of its talent. The company, which is a focal point of China’s efforts to revive Beijing opera performance at the highest level, performed to a packed house on its opening night, and the enthusiasm of the audience was palpable even before the curtain went up.
For its opening show, two very different pieces had been selected. The first was an excerpt titled Fork in the Road (三岔口), which featured Zhan Lei (詹磊), an upcoming star in young martial male roles. The excerpt, which presents a scene of an assassin attempting to kill a general at a highway inn, is designed to show off acrobatic and mime skills. The action takes place in a pitch-dark room — though the stage is brightly lit — and the two characters move around in perfectly choreographed confusion.
All this was done to a stripped-down percussion accompaniment and was a demonstration of the physical foundations on which more mature interpretive performances can be based. Strong stage presence and amazing skill allowed the two performers to hold the audience’s rapt attention for the half hour segment in which there was only few minutes of introductory dialogue.
This was by way of an opener for the main event, a full production of The Jewelry Pouch (鎖麟囊) featuring youth troupe leader Chi Xiaoqiu (遲小秋). Once again, the performance was remarkable for its solid vocal and physical skills, but enjoyment was somewhat marred by the almost painful volume at which the sound reproduction equipment was set. Adjustments during the intermission removed the worst effects, but sadly, the definition of some of the more ornate vocal passages was lost in the distortion of the speakers. This technical problem aside, the quality of the performance was outstanding, with the solid foundation work for which the company is famous shining through. Though Chi was certainly the star of the show, the work of Xu Meng-ke (徐孟珂) as a comic maid was a remarkable demonstration of female impersonation and clowning.
While much opera in Taiwan is looking to find an outlet through integration with contemporary theater and theatrical design, it is refreshing to see a production of such proudly strident conservatism in which the performer was everything. There was never any danger of a costume designer or director stealing the spotlight. The audience was vociferous in its approval.
Dancer/choreographer Yeh Ming-hwa (葉名樺) found the right balance of precision and whimsy in her duet Tightrope Walker (走索人), performed as part of the Kaohsiung City Ballet’s (高雄城市芭蕾舞團) Dance Shoe 2009 (2009點子鞋) at the Experimental Theater on Saturday. It may have been the shortest piece on the six-work program, but it was clearly the best.
Yeh and partner Kuo Chiu-miao (郭秋妙), dressed simply in a muted assortment of warm-up clothes, were crisp and clean, matching each other step for step whether on point or on the floor. Yeh also found the right balance between the pair work and each dancer’s solos.
The other partnerships that worked well were the duet by former Cloud Gate dancer Janet Chang (張慈妤), C&J’s women C&J (的女人), and Chang Ya-ting’s (張雅婷) romantic pas de trios A Lingering Reflection in the Eye (留在瞳孔裡的影子). Both women danced in their own works, which was wonderful because they are terrific dancers, but they also showed a generosity as choreographers in allowing their partners to shine as well.
Such a balance was lacking in the other pieces. Chien Liang-che (簡良哲) showed a flair for drama in his Variation (岐), which clearly took a page from Matthew Bourne’s male-focused Swan Lake, but his two fellow dancers lacked the technique to pull off their parts. Kao Hsin-yu (高辛毓) tried to cram too much into his Moonlight (月光), while Wang Kuo-chuen’s (王國權) Romantic Era (浪漫時期) had some promising bits, but like the facemask that figured so proximately in the photo montages, ended up being more image than substance.
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