Riding on the success of last year's Men Dancing, the series presenting choreography by and for male dancers from various cultures, the Novel Dance Series 2002 is bringing to Taipei Action Women. The new series, though consisting of only two performances, is aimed at giving people in Taiwan a rare chance to see the celebrated pieces by world-renowned female choreographers.
One of the two choreographers invited by Lin Huai-min (
The other participating choreographer is Chandralekha, who, according to Lin, illustrates how the process of time alters a choreographer. "Her works are like spring tea that leaves behind a lingering aroma long after you've tasted it," Lin said.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NOVEL HALL
The two choreographers, both in Taiwan for the first time, are meant to contrast each other with their different cultural backgrounds and expression.
Streb Go: ActionHeroes, by the New York-based choreographer, is an in-your-face dynamic piece that appears more like sport than dance.
Calling her own choreography "pop action," Streb has been creating works since 1979 which combine the disciplines of dance and athletics. Sending her dancers flying, bouncing and crashing off surfaces, Streb set out to test the boundaries of physical motion. One of the performances by the Streb Company that drew rave reviews was at New York's Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, where harnessed dancers bounced off a 12m wall.
This is how Streb brings out the potential of human movement. "We can show that they are moving animals. I try to share with the people in the room that they can learn how to fly," Streb was quoted as saying when Streb Go: ActionHeroes toured Chicago earlier this year.
Streb's "ActionHeroes" are the American stunt artists who put their lives at risk to thrill audiences. Indignant about the fact that their feats have gone uncelebrated, Streb meant to pay them homage with a show filled with action.
The show opens with Rise and Fall, an episode in which a line-up of eight dancers appear standing on a beam. As it begins to rise, each of the dancers take turns falling to the mats below. The last dancer waits until the beam almost reaches the the top of the stage to fall, landing face down with a loud wallop.
These movements, in which dancers seem to completely give themselves up to faith is what Streb calls "pop action technique." The rest of the show, which bursts with physical impact, will make the audience breathless throughout.
Starting next Friday, controversial southern Indian choreographer Chandralekha will present her latest production Sharira -- Fire and Desire with her Indian dancers. When premiered at "Bharatanatyam in the Diaspora," the first international conference on the traditional Indian dance form, last September in Chicago, the piece embarassed quite a few parents with children in tow with its untamed expression of sensuality. However, it was by no means the first time the iconoclast jolted?public sensibilities.
Infusing the classical with the contemporary, Chandralekha has created dance pieces involving forms like yoga, Indian martial arts, mudras and Bharatanatyam, India's oldest dance form.
Despite being a successful Bharatanatyam dancer in the 1950s and 1960s, Chandralekha believed at the time that the dance form badly needed reforming. Breaking away from the classical dance scene, she began working as a writer and graphic designer, while participating in women's and human rights movements.
Chandralekha made her comeback in 1985 with Angika, which took the dance world by storm, making her one of the most important figures in the Indian counter-cultural movement in the 1980s.
However, her most controversial work so far remains Raga: In search of Femininity. In this performance, two bare-chested male dancers entagle themselves in no-holds-barred homoerotic poses. A group of female dancers pant and peek at, and often partake in the mock coitus.
The similarly sexually-charged Sharira -- Fire and Desire provoked strong reaction at its premiere with its spiritual energy that originates from Bharatanatyam and an explicit body language which was thought to be incompatible with the traditional dance form.
The duet opens with the female dancer entering the stage in the dark, spreading her body and receiving a flow of energy with her private parts, all the while caressing herself. The male dancer soon follows her on stage. Seeing the woman, he stands on his head as a form of worship of the female pudendum. The two then become intwined in a spiritual coitus, which evolves into a sexual awakening for both.
The tension between the male and female dancers is a palpable, sizzling energy throughout the dance, imbueing the excruciatingly slow yet continuous movements with excitement. Apart from the strength of their movements, the shifting formation of the two is stunningly powerful.
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