It is easy to understand why Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) says he favors Cursive II (行草貳) over the other two parts of his Cursive trilogy. Its sleek, spare lines, minimalist costumes and staging, and stark score all serve to focus the audiences’ eyes on Lin’s choreography. But even as you watch Cloud Gate Dance Theatre’s (雲門舞集) incredibly supple dancers — super supple, since theirs is a profession where suppleness is a given — those other elements quietly filter into your awareness, sometimes as imperceptibly as the slight shifts that gradually change the backdrop from eggshell white to bisque to a textured ivory or from a silvery filigree to a light mauve crackled glaze.
Four years ago I wrote a review of Wild Cursive (狂草) that described the piece as “dance stripped down to the bare essentials.” While I had seen Cursive (行草) at that point, I had not seen Cursive II. I now stand corrected. Part II is the barest of the bare. It is a celebration of emptiness — from the vast expanses of stage space that go unused, to the stark whiteness of the floor, to the costumes — flesh-toned leotards and white pants for the women, black wide-legged pants for the men — to the score that isn’t a score.
If the first half of last year’s Whisper of Flowers sometimes seemed like Lin was channeling the exuberance of Paul Taylor, in Cursive II he is forging his own take on the late American minimalist modern choreographer Merce Cunningham’s code — movement for its own sake. The choice of John Cage for the score was apt, since Cage was Cunningham’s artistic and life partner.
The score, what there was of it, seem to be a selection of notes, tones and sounds — often as drawn out and tremulous as the way a dancer quivers slightly as he or she stretches to extend an arm or a leg or a back. The dancers neither moved to the sounds nor seemed to respond to them; Cage’s music was just part of the background.
The show opens with two dancers posed against a white floor and black backdrop, one woman standing and the other kneeling before her. It ends with a folded woman silhouetted against a rapidly diminishing white square until the entire stage goes black. During the 11 segments, the dancers move in small groups, in duets, trios and quartets as Lin demonstrated his command of space and form. I was struck once again on Saturday night by how much of Lin’s choreography is from the ground up, as dancers lower themselves almost to the floor in deep plies that with a turn of foot are transformed into a tai chi pose with the right leg outstretched and left knee bent, effortlessly shifting their weight from one leg to the other, moving low to the ground.
Chinese calligraphy may have been Lin’s inspiration, but the backdrops and the women’s costumes bring to mind the delicateness of the finest porcelain teacups. The calligraphic punch, as it were, comes from the men’s black pants, which have a panel that makes the outfit look like a skirt from the back, so that when the men lift a leg out to the side or over their head or twirl across the stage, the black cloth moves like the broad end to a brush stroke.
Cloud Gate may have found Cursive II to be a harder sell to fans than the first and third parts — it didn’t sell out, whereas all five shows for next week’s Wild Cursive were gone by last week — but it is a finely crafted work.
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