城市封神 The Legend and the Hero

I rushed to the show literally right after my exam, by the time I got to the theatre, I was about ten minutes late. As you may have expected, I did not do much preparative research on this work prior to the performance. I was absolutely taking a risk of ‘wasting the ticket’, with genuinely nothing in my mind, no prejudgement, no assumption, no nothing, pure sit-back-and-relax. With this state of mind, I should be thankful that this work was pretty accessible, embracing the profound theory in an explicit and somewhat entertaining choreographic device. Surprisingly, few fragments are still fresh like live today, 18 days after the show. 

In fact, CCDC have spent appreciable effort on promotion of this work among secondary schools and universities, supposing they are targeting on the audience with little theatre experience, or primary audience in my word. As far as I have observed, for the works aimed for primary audience, they normally share the following typical characteristics, props oriented, colorful costumes, along with some mainstream type music.  

The part I particularly want to highlight here is the idea of ‘fake arm’, that was incredibly fascinating, intelligent and inspiring. In that session, every dancer was dressed in suit with helmet covering up the face, performing repetitive steps echoed by the robotic electronic sounds. The sense of lost individualism and routine-like suffocation was instantly visualized. Most interestingly, the real arm in suit worked surprisingly well with the fake arm, while the real arm without cover danced like the fake one. It took me a while to figure out which is which. As in the reality, fake or real, we just can’t tell. Intrinsically, the hint of greed, or aspiration from deep inside I should say, was stirringly strong. Free from any restriction, it went wilder and wilder looking like it was going to be detached any second, the real soul was going to be unleashed any minute. I was deeply impressed by the free arm then, I am now more attracted to the posture of the fake arm. When paying more attention, they are all different on each dancer, inducing the slight and only personality to them. The gesture held like it is ready to give a handshake anytime, the most common way to express friendliness, or agreement nowadays. That was fairly reflective and thought-stimulating gesture indeed. Every time when we shake someone’s hand, does that really infer our ‘friendship’, or it’s just an ‘easier’ way to start or end a conversation? In showbiz world, whenever there is a fell-out rumor going on between two artists, they always stand out and shake hands to crack the so-called myth. However, who knows? We should redefine the meaning of handshake in social life. The scene was seriously rooted in my mind, it still constantly loops in my head today. 

Act III - Nine Songs, has been the most enjoyable act in the whole production, with laughters arousing in the hall. Dancers came out wearing a cube with Political figures’ faces on four sides, I can still remember that crystal clear now. It’s not just because the way they moved with that cube was amusing, but the way of how various dance genre were utilized to outline one’s characteristic was absorbing, like conservative ones taking classical ballet steps (Dance of the Lord and the Lady of the Xiang), Obama and Hillary performing the stereotyped American broadway steps (Dance of the Master of Fate and his subordinate). Actually, the relationship between Obama and Hillary was well portrayed in this choreography, dancing in union depicts their superficial peaceful partnership, whereas Obama holding Hillary back when she was trying to go beyond, the hostile kind of relationship was subtly hinted. The best sarcasm must be down to the Dance of the Mountain Ghosts, Neanderthal like steps and clumsy moves were perfect and manifest to illustrate how uncivilized of Laden, Saddam and Gaddafi are. The role of Ai Weiwei there was pretty obvious to be the contemporary version of Qu Yuan. From my point of view, his existence may not be intended to change something, but at least he froze up the scene and let us digest the current picture. This act is, to some extent, cheesy but in an intriguing way. 

Act IV - Questions to the Heaven, is certainly an eye-catching act, the props became the actual dancers. They represent different routine works we face everyday, exaggerated size made those look like endless mission. It sounds quite provocative, right? To be fair, I personally think this scene has ruined the entire work, to some experienced audience I suppose. Too abstract or too explicit of an art work is somehow a fatal wound. In this case, the latter one. Plus, the sense of getting lost or tired from routine work is no longer a ‘new’ idea on stage art, a more innovative approach shall be employed instead. Starting from the beginning, I found this work rather predictable and conservative in terms of storyline and choreographic device, but there were some interesting elements kept me staying. However, this scene, unfortunately, turned out to be a disaster. When the first dancer came up, I sat there and thought: I knew this. Apparently, nothing appeared out of my expectation all the way through, especially for the very last scene of Dominic transcending from crawling to walking with faith, that was the most boring scene ever. No expectation, no surprise, just pure disappointment. 

I would take this production as an installation art exhibition, which seems to be more appropriate. I, indeed, love the costumes and the props incorporated, but there shall be more innovative chemistry between dancers and counterparts. However, having said that, it has been, to a great extent, a considerably successful ‘bridging’ work for audience with little theatre experience.

In general, the approach may not be the best, but the message it conveyed is certainly deep influencing. This work has explored diverse aspects we are familiar with, as if reminding where our Qu Yuan is, or how we should locate Qu Yuan in us. Different scene may have different meaning to different people. As Willy said, everyone possesses his own part of QuYuan. To me, Qu Yuan is always with my social life.  

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.