Liquidamber Orientalis is a work as much of scholarship as of performance. It is largely the brainchild of dancer Liu Feng-shueh (劉鳳學), the artistic director of the Neo-Classical Dance Company. Although a pioneer in modern dance, Liu has more recently turned her attention into reviving China's ancient traditions of dance and music. With this current work, Feng brings to the stage four dance and musical works that have lain in the obscurity of mildewy texts for centuries.
This is not a particularly light-hearted night out. Three of the pieces presented are of Tang court music, these slow moving pieces go for a kind of pure aesthetic which might be all very well if you are simply looking at the dances with an eye for picking a companion for the night while sipping on exotic wines. Sitting in the somewhat less relaxed atmosphere off the National Theater, it is more likely to serve as an excellent cure for insomnia unless you want to take the whole exercise rather seriously.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CKS CULTURAL CENTER
And for those who do, Liquidamber Orientalis offers considerable material to ponder upon, especially if you have some knowledge of music. Liu's explanations of the unique features of Tang music show that it already had a very complex structure, with types of harmony and rhythms that are just waiting to be rediscovered.
The Tang dynasty, which ruled China from 618 to 907AD, was one of the cultural high points of Chinese civilization, a period when China's ruling class was open to influences from Central Asia and the Russian steppe, and in which the teachings of Islam, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism all competed to influence the thought of Chinese intellectuals. Much of the cultural receptivity was lost after the An Lu-shan rebellion, after which xenophobia took hold of Chinese intellectual life. According to Feng, recreating the music of the Tang is only part of a larger project to more fully understand the society of Tang China, which still is an integral part of what Chinese culture is about today.
This is a rare opportunity to see what Chinese music might have been like one thousand years ago, one that makes very few concessions to modern sensibilities.
Performance Notes:
Grand Piece -- Liquidamber Orientalis: Reconstruction of Tang Music and Dance will be performed by Tang Music and Dance at the National Theater, Taipei at 7:30pm today and tomorrow, and at 2:30pm tomorrow and Sunday. Tickets are NT$300 to NT$1,200
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