Sitting on the grass, a gentle breeze cooling off the day’s heat, a few stars visible in the night’s sky and Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集) on stage and on the big screen for free. Summer nights don’t get much better than this.
The crowd at the Taipei County Sports Stadium in Banciao on Saturday night was eclectic — everyone from babes in arms to a few 70-plusers and quite a few foreigners — some who had obviously planned ahead by bringing folding chairs and blankets and some who just happened to be wandering by, like the nurse sitting near me who said she lives near the stadium and usually walks the track in the evenings but stayed to watch the show.
The program provided a good opportunity to see the development of company founder and artistic director Lin Hwai-min’s (林懷民) style and choreographic ability.
The program opened with Tale of the White Serpent (白蛇傳), first performed in 1975, when Lin was drawing heavily from traditional Chinese folklore and performing arts for his inspiration. The lead roles on Saturday were danced by three veterans: Tsai Ming-yuan (蔡銘元) as the young scholar, Chou Chang-ning (周章佞) as the woman he is obsessed with and Chiu Yi-wen (邱怡文) as the snake. All three are terrific dancers who are fun to watch whatever they are doing. Chiu was especially good as she coiled and slithered her way through her role.
The influence of both Beijing opera and Martha Graham on Lin in this piece was evident in the staging and the choreography, but it’s clear that even in Cloud Gate’s early years Lin had a sure, deft touch.
Next up was an excerpt from Wild Cursive (狂草) for two men and two women, led by Lin Chia-liang (林佳良), whose spiraling energy epitomized the imagery of ink drops come to life.
The selection from the classic 1998 Moon Water (水月) was a solo by Huang Pei-hua (黃�?, who was liquid grace as she curved up and down and around herself — the living embodiment of both water and Mischa Maisky’s cello. The great benefit of an outdoor performance is the big screens that flank the stage; you could see every nuance, the ripple and flow of each muscle and limb and the concentration on Huang’s face, instead of the blur of motion she usually appears on the National Theater stage.
Both the excerpt from Cursive 2 (行草貳) and the program’s finale, the first half of 2008’s Whisper of Flowers (花語), show Lin’s skill in group pieces, though very different in style and execution. The opening segment of Whisper appears likely to prove as big an audience favorite as Moon Water has become over the years.
For those who waited patiently after the show there was the fun of seeing “kids” of all ages dancing, sliding, jumping or just walking around picking up armfuls of petals from Whisper and throwing them in the air. This year the company gave more people the chance to play than last year, but cut the stage time. A total of 360 people, in groups of 45, were allowed on stage for a minute-and-a half to play around in the petals. With the Cloud Gate’s usual precision, all 360 were quickly sorted out and lined up and the petal-play time went off with almost military timing.
My only complaint with the evening — as in previous years — is that the camera operators often focus on just two or three of the dancers, not the whole stage. This is fine for solos or duets, but if there is a lot of space between dancers or groups of dancers, those who are sitting far to the sides — and therefore dependent on the big screens to follow the action — lose out on the big picture.
The company will perform on Saturday night at the Changhua Municipal Stadium. To get a good seat (in the middle and down in front), Cloud Gate fans should get to the stadium early.
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