Cloud Gate 2's Spring Gathering 2006 was a thoroughly enjoyable mix of lyrical grace, sisterly love and laugh-out-loud fun. It's not an easy combination to pull off, but the company's young dancers proved they were more than up to the task.
The evening began with Gloaming, resident choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava's (
Dictionaries define "gloaming" as twilight, and the first half is all about shades and passages. As the piece begins, the five men who lift and carry guest artist Sheu Fang-yi (
PHOTO: WALLY SANTANA, AP
Languid undulations in the group movements are counterbalanced by spasmodic jerks of the soloists that seem to echo the staticky sounds in the score (a mixture of Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki and Darrin Verhagen), while in twos and threes, other dancers move across the front or the back of the stage at an incredibly slow, measured pace.
Gloaming picks up speed with a dramatic pas de deux between one of the men and a woman in a black unitard and top, her face hidden by a black veil. As the piece nears its conclusion, the stage lightens and the costuming shifts to white, perhaps to indicate an acceptance of the end and the beginning of the afterlife.
It is a beautiful piece that clearly shows Bulareyaung's mastery of his craft.
It was hard to watch Pursuing the Dream, Cloud Gate 2 founder and artistic director Lo Man-fei's (
Sophie Lo's stiff white costume and headdress and the practiced artificiality of her movements provided a striking contrast to the fluidity of Sheu's free-flowing dress, hair and limbs. Sheu's emotional connection with Lo's choreography added texture to her finely nuanced performance.
Pursuing the Dream is a beautiful expression of sisterly love across the divide of very different theatrical traditions and a wonderful final gift.
The program's last piece, A Dignified Joke, brought to mind Twyla Tharp's Push Comes to Shove, not just in its playfulness but in the joyfulness of the dancers, who were obviously having a ball. Giggles and laughter could frequently be heard from the audience.
The piece began with deceptive formality, a proper black dress on Yang Ling-kai (楊淩凱) and evening jackets or black suits for her male colleagues. But then, each dancer extended one arm, flexed the wrist and then rolled the hand up to and over the head before dropping it down the front of the body and grabbing the crotch with a pelvic thrust -- a move that became a signature motif of the piece.
A Dignified Joke is all about image and how we present ourselves to the outside world. Does clothing really make the man (or woman)?
The entire company shone in this piece, but especially good were Yang and her male colleagues Chou Shu-yi (
The sophistication of the choreography and tongue-in-cheek commentary showed that Cheng Tung-lung (
Cloud Gate 2 wraps up its spring tour with matinee and evening performances at National Sun Yat-sen University (
A vaccine to fight dementia? It turns out there may already be one — shots that prevent painful shingles also appear to protect aging brains. A new study found shingles vaccination cut older adults’ risk of developing dementia over the next seven years by 20 percent. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is part of growing understanding about how many factors influence brain health as we age — and what we can do about it. “It’s a very robust finding,” said lead researcher Pascal Geldsetzer of Stanford University. And “women seem to benefit more,” important as they’re at higher risk of
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS