Kaohsiung has been steadily gaining ground in its cultural affairs wars with Taipei, which is not only the nation’s capital, but the center of its arts and culture industry as well.
Even before the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts opens at the end of this year, the city government and the Ministry of Culture have been helping spread some of the wealth of cultural resources around with the annual Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival (高雄春天藝術節) that plays out for several months at venues around the city, either by enticing international and local companies that are already set to perform in Taipei to add shows in the south, or by bringing in troupes for only-in-Kaohsiung shows.
Last year saw dance lovers from northern Taiwan head south to see the Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Dance Company’s production of Story/Times. This weekend, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Sutra at the Wei Wu Ying Center for the Arts in the Fengshen District is the draw.
Photo Courtesy of Eastman / Koen Broos
The Flemish-Moroccan choreographer wowed Taipei audiences in 2007 when he appeared with British dancer-choreographer Akram Khan at Novel Hall their their show Zero Degrees.
Sutra, which premiered at Sadler’s Wells in London in 2008, is an equally breathtaking collaboration between Cherkaoui, British sculptor Antony Gormley (who also worked on Zero Degrees), 17 Shaolin Temple monks from China and Polish composer Szymon Brzoska.
Gormley stage set is deceptively simple — just 21 wooden boxes that are used by the monks as pedestals or beds or to create walls, bridges, a blossoming lotus and a whole lot more.
Cherkaoui brings a background as an acrobat, contemporary dancer and actor to his works and for Sutra — given the famed warrior monks’ training — he added taichi and kungfu to the mix. The monks defy gravity again and again.
The 60-minute show developed from Cherkaoui’s visits to the Shaolin Temple near Dengfeng in Henan Province, and an invitation from the temple’s abbot to create something with its monks. He ended up spending about half-a-year at the temple and said he was inspired by the skill, strength and spirituality of the boys and men who live there.
Philosophy, faith and cross-cultural issues are topics that Cherkaoui has explored in previous works, so his examination of the monks’ spiritual and martial arts practice were a natural progression.
The show is about self-exploration, confrontation, obsession — and a lot of movement. The focus of Sutra is patterns, whether made visible by the moving monks and boxes or the invisible ones that bind humans to their world.
Audiences in Kaohsiung will have a chance to see why the show has become one of Sadler’s Wells biggest hits.
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