Six Degrees 六度

刑亮的六度

11.12.2010

Xing's works are known to be generally abstract, for this reason I have done a little research before watching Six Degrees. “ Dance needs not to be understood, you interpret it in your own little way based on how you feel.” said Xing Liang. I was enlightened by this theory, as I have been working so hard on analyzing a work technically without realizing I have eliminated all the possible imagination which is strongly discouraged in appreciation of Art. It was my very first time not to take any notes while I was watching, just let myself to be soaked in his Six Degrees.

“Six Degrees” is an airy and imaginative title, so what are “Six Degrees” exactly? “The Chinese title Six Degrees(“ Liu Du”) originally refers to the Six Paramitas of Buddhism. The word “du” means “Crossing to Enlightenment”. When it is in terms of Taoism, it means north, east, south, heaven(up) and earth(down).” by Lin Kehuan. However, Xing is not intended to put too much academic knowledge into the context, instead he would like to introduce a new dance theory to the audience the dancers and himself in terms of space, timing and relationships between dancer themselves and relationships between dancers and the physical setting. The subject matter of this work is to create a new “Six Degrees” for the Dance universe.

In the whole night, the stage effect impressed me most, the lighting, music and the movements. Everything is working together to create the bizarre chemistry, it is unfair to just focus on one particular thing. Every single thing is interrelated to each other and it is not possible to separate them. Six Degrees demonstrated the various ways we can play with on the stage from level to level. I particular appreciate the idea about the gender of the dancers, which were expressed through trios, duets, and solos in the opening. In those dance movements, there were no such obvious subject matter but the interrelationships among the performers. Both genders shared the strength equally at the beginning to try to crack the gender issue in performing arts, somehow they worked against tradition, like the females lifted up males instead. But still, males can do much more strength-driven movements physically compared to females. I am guessing it is something Xing agrees it is no easy matter to break the limitation.

I have to admit I was rather confused at first, having said that it is not wise to put too much things on the stage at the same time in which the audience can easily lose the track. However, I started to realize what Xing really wanted to convey later on. The dancers performed in a strong dynamics juxtaposed with strange and irregular echo, in such a way, the contrast made the busyness and the madness on the stage even more stand out- the emotions and the relationships of the dancers were accented.

Apart from relationships between dancers, Xing also played with the relationship between timing and movements. There was a scene that different dancers possessed their own little path and they travelled back and fro with repeating series of actions. As the time moved on, the music accelerated as well as the dancers, eventually they could not catch up the speed and collapse down. It was like running on a on going treadmill, but the physical speed is one of the human restriction which cannot be easily exceeded.

Besides, Xing also added projection on the back to emphasize the sense of space by showing the pictures and the clips about galaxies and universe. And the piece was ended with the black hole shown on the poster to suggest mystery of the blackhole in the universe. No one actually knows what exactly are in the blackhole, just like dance. You will never know how it will turn out unless you explore it. The blackhole completed the whole meaning of the dance, the question in my mind. Somehow the answer is embraced in the question and we have to dig the key back out from the inquisition.

All in all, Six Degrees illustrated Xing's main philosophy which is dance should be created for the sake of dance instead of expressing a story, or a meaning. Meanwhile, Xing experimented diverse ways to break through the human limits and hence the limits between mortal and immortal. This work has brought us an influential impact on choreography as it reminded us what dance means to us when we think back to basics, like what else we can do with the dancer on the stage and what we should work hard on to smash the restrictions. After all, Six Degrees is an inspiring and interesting masterpiece.