The latter was used in the segment titled “A song of Wenchung and Ruping” danced by Chiu Yu-wen (邱鈺閔) and Chang Chih-chieh (張智傑) that segued from a lovely pas de deux to a friendly but exhilarating competition. It was a beautiful and moving tribute by Lin to his wife, Wang Ru-ping (王如萍), a dancer with the Jose Limon Company.
Lin himself appeared just briefly, leaving most of the work to his five dancers, especially the exceptional Chiu and Lin Hsiao-yuan (林筱圓).
While “minimalism” was the word that sprang to mind with Lin Wen-chung, “articulated” seemed to be the word to define Wayne McGregor and his Random Dance company’s production Entity at Novel Hall on Friday night.
In McGregor’s choreography, the joints of the body — from the neck to the shoulders, elbows, hips, knees and ankles— are twisted and cocked to allow the body to turn in unexpected directions.
Like Lin, McGregor strips away all the excess, a minimalism reflected in the set by Patrick Burnier (who also designed the black briefs/white T-shirt costumes) — three screens held up (or down) by structures that look like catapult rigs.
Entity began and ended with a stop-motion short video projection made from photographs of a racing greyhound taken by 19th-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Just as Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion works allowed viewers to clearly delineate the movements of running animals, McGregor’s choreography takes apart his 10 dancers’ bodies and puts them back together in unexpected ways.
Friday’s show at Novel Hall was a fascinating introduction to one of the most innovative choreographers working today.
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