The Ballet Preljocaj’s performance of Snow White at the National Theater on Saturday night was a delight, despite the bizarre diaper/toga costume Jean Paul Gaultier designed for the heroine.
The diaper looked so baggy that it was hard to imagine a two-year-old who could move around in it comfortably. The costume was distracting, not just for its sheer ugliness, but because Japanese dancer Nagisa Shirai often appeared to have to keep making sure the toga portion hanging down at the back would not be in the way as she moved around on the floor.
Gaultier’s vision for the evil queen was a dominatrix’s dream. I kept waiting for a whip to appear and he didn’t disappoint. The rest of the costumes were a bizarre mix of textures and genres — Grecian drapes wrapped in leather straps, a prince wearing a matador’s pants (also uncomfortable looking) and tartan-clad dwarves; luckily Thierry Leproust’s modernist sets were stunning and the choreography was sublime.
French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj kept the pace moving crisply and some scenes were especially memorable. The aerial ballet of the dwarfs coming down their mountain wall was beautiful, as were the pas de deux for Snow White and her prince, who were in turns shy, tender and passionate.
This, however, is not a Disney version of Snow White, although there were a number of children in the audience. It was a very adult show and the scene where the stepmother kills Snow White with a poisoned apple was powerful and brutal.
The company moves to Kaohsiung this week, with performances on Wednesday and Thursday at the Kaohsiung Chiang Kai-shek Cultural Center (高雄中正文化中心). This is a show not to be missed.
Horse’s (驫舞劇場) performance at the Metropolitan Hall on Saturday afternoon was a much more uneven affair. While the six-man troupe deserves applause for trying to broaden its scope, the show needed editing. Best on the program were four of the solos.
The show opened with Proverb, a poetic solo that American choreographer Eliot Feld created for Chen Wu-kang (陳武康) in 2004 to a haunting sound track by Steve Reich. At first, you caught only glimpses of Chen’s body, revealed in portions by the light from the two bulbs he held in each gloved hand. The contrast between the large misty shadows cast by Chen and the glimpses of an expanse of leg, or chest or back was striking. This was the Chen that New York audiences know, but a facet he has rarely shown at home.
The solo Chen created for Chou Shu-yi (周書毅) back in 2005, Who, was a lyrical three-part work that showed off Chou’s grace in swirls that alternated slow curves with quick spiraling movements and ended up with him twisting his body into pretzel-like linkages on the floor. It was a good reminder both of Chou’s beauty as a dancer and Chen’s talent when he’s creating on his own.
The expansiveness of Chou’s dancing in Who stood in sharp contrast to the minimalism of his own solo, Start With the Body, which began with his standing almost motionless in the swinging spotlight cast by a single overhead light. Clad in a hooded soft jersey jumpsuit that hid his body while defining its musculature, Chou began with simple hand and arm movements held close to the body, alternating with explosive kicks and bursts of energy, gradually widening both the area he covered on stage and his range of motion.
Another surprise came in the form of Feld’s new solo for Su Wei-chia (蘇威嘉), Zeppo, inspired by the oft-forgotten fourth brother of the Three Stooges. The chunky Su flew about the stage, clad in a modern riff on a 1920s comedian — white long underwear with big black buttons (front and rear), black bowler hat and tie and fingerless gloves. Just about the only time he stopped moving were the few moments it took for him to do a headstand, and then fold his legs over into a graceful backbend. It was a fun little piece and completely unlike anything Su has been seen in before.
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