What a difference a year — and a new home — can make.
Cloud Gate 2’s (雲門 2) Spring Riot 2015 program featured a reinvigorated troupe, three intriguing dances and a running time that left audience members eager for more — a far cry from last year’s three-hour-long program that left the audience feeling as drained as the performers.
There was also the excitement of seeing what the Cloud Gate family’s new home in Tamsui looked liked fully furnished — having seen the bare bones of the main theater and other parts in November last year when a blessing ceremony was held to mark completion of major construction on the site.
Photo courtesy of Lee Chia-yeh
The Cloud Gate Theater turned out to be a simple, intimate box of a venue, with dark paneled walls, black industrial grating for a ceiling and a dance floor that begins just a few feet from the first row; perfect for small troupes that do not need a lot of scenery or set pieces.
The only disappointment during last Saturday’s matinee came before the curtain went up — when the troupe’s long-time leading dancer, Yang Ling-kai (楊淩凱), sat down a few seats away, clipboard and pen in hand, to watch the show. Initial fears that Yang had made a permanent leap from dancer to management were dispelled by the news that she is taking a year off from performing to recover from knee surgery.
While I was sorry not to see Yang dance, her colleagues more than made up for her absence in what proved to be some very complicated — and spine contorting — choreography.
Photo courtesy of Lee Chia-yeh
While each of the three dances had its own structure and motif, I was struck by the dark feeling and repetitive use of herky-jerky movements in the first two — Horde (暫時而已) by Huang Huai-te (黃懷德) and Chen Yun-ju’s (陳韻如) Hell Groove (衝撞天堂), though their look and progression were very different.
The shortest work on the program, Horde, set to Steve Reich’s Proverb, is Huang’s first piece for the company, but hopefully will not be his last.
The curtain opens on a cluster of three men and three woman in dirt-streaked clothes on the left side of a darkly lit stage, who proceed to move in bounces — on their toes and sometimes their knees — across and around the stage as if propelled by an unseen force. Huang kept the six on a tight rein and there were flashes of humor and lightness, but despair seemed to follow the group.
One of the more memorable partnerings involved a prone man lifting a woman as she walked in place on his knees or shins; the second time the man “walked” on his hands and feet as another woman stood on his knees.
Hell Groove had a cleaner, more bare bones look to begin with, the eight men and women clad at first in long, wide-skirted tunic dresses by Lin Bing-hao (林秉豪) — although the lighting and the score evoked a menancing vibe. Set to Hell Groove by Alessio Castellacci and Playing Love by Ennio Morricone, the dancers shake, shake, shake their bodies, sometimes quietly, with just tremors of a head, an arm or a leg, but other times they appear close to convulsing. There are a lot of repetitive gestures in the solos and pairings, but they never become boring and the dancers really show what they can, especially Luo Sih-wei (駱思維) in his solo.
The dancers shed their dresses to reveal nude-toned tops (for the women) and bare chests for the men and very sexy black leggings with a deep V that begins just about their navels, as the pulsating beat of the music picks up and the bodies begin to twist and spin and the lighting becomes more dramatic.
The piece ends with quieter piano music and two women slowly walking across the back of the stage, the men collapsed prone on the floor, as one woman rubs her arms and then her face with a look of regret as the curtain comes down.
The piece was well constructed and showed the influence of Germany’s contemporary dance world on Chen, who has worked in Germany for several years. Fingers crossed she will get another chance to work with Cloud Gate 2.
Artistic director Cheng Tsung-lung’s (鄭宗龍) 40-minute-long Beckoning (來) is a return to form after last year’s messy Dorian Gray (杜連魁). Inspired by the street dancing of the “Eight Infernal Generals” (八家將) in Taoist temple parades, Beckoning is filled with serpentine contortions, pelvic swivels and lots of side-to-side rocking for the 10 dancers, set to a score by Chung Cheng-da (鍾成達) and Quiet Quartet (靜謐時光), arranged by Blaire Ko (柯智豪).
The piece opens with a long solo by Wang Yu-guang (王宇光), initially with his back to the audience, whose serpentine curving of his torso and arms foreshadows the movements of the rest of the dancers later in the piece.
Cheng has created a perfect melding of Taiwanese culture and Western contemporary dance, each equally balanced against the other.
Once again, Luo stood out in his solo, as did Lee Yin-ying (李尹櫻), who can retain your interest even when she is just flexing her fingers, in her solo and her duet with Chen Yi-en (陳逸恩).
The remaining shows in Tamsui are sold out, but Cloud Gate 2 will perform in Taichung on May 15 and 16 at Taichung Chungshan Hall and in Kaoshiung from May 22 to May 24 at the Dadong Cultural Center.
This piece has been updated since it was first published.
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