Exploring rituals
- Source: Global Times
- [08:17 November 05 2010]
- Comments
Anthony Trojman and Samantha Mitchell from Australian's Expressions Dance Company.
By Xing Daiqi
A powerful modern dance triptych exploring the notion of rituals sees Australian's Expressions Dance Company (EDC) and China's Beijing Dance/LDTX join hands for the first time. First Ritual, a featured performance of the Year of Australian Culture in China, will make its world premiere this evening at Beijing's PLA Theater, promising the best that Australian and Chinese modern dance have to offer.
"We want to explore rituals as a primitive means of human culture through dance," explained Willy Tsao, choreographer and artistic director of LDTX. "From the Australian side comes a beautiful piece featuring life and rituals on the beach, which is characteristic of modern Australian culture and from the Chinese, our religious and wartime rituals taken from traditional culture. These concerns and collisions of two different cultures finally meet and interact in the third section, imbuing new meaning and dimensions to modern dance."
Set on a white sand belt against powerful jet-black staging, an Australian bride swirls her way onto center stage. In a signature organic movement, she dances in time with the mesmerizing music from famous Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe.
While drawing inspiration from the connection Australians have with their land, The Beach, the opening section, also incorporates sophisticated images by Australian photographers Max Dupain and Oliver Cotton of modern rituals as courtship, weddings, funerals and simple friendship.
"The piece is sort of like a cycle of a woman's life: She goes through the wedding, she has the children, she works," explained Natalie Weir, EDC's choreographer and artistic director.
The Australian dance group of six dancers based in Brisbane, EDC was established 25 years ago. With internationally renowned choreographer Weir appointed as the new artistic director, the company is in the process of reinventing themselves. "My style is a little like what you saw, very organic and sensual, it's always about human being and their emotion," Weir said.
The second piece, set to the music of legendary composer Tan Dun's Orchestral Theatre II: Re, is inspired by Cloud Gate, China's earliest ritual music and dance ceremony.
"Cloud Gate, with ritualistic origins dating back some 5,000 years, features a ceremony celebrating the victory of war during the time of Yellow Emperor who is considered as the ancestor of the Chinese people," Tsao explained.
"To us, Chinese civilization evolves through constant wars, revolutions and blooding. In this work, the complex contradictions between human beings as well as that of man and ritual are brought into focus."
"Created by Chinese choreographer Li Hanzhong and Ma Bo, their style is quite tough, angular, with strong visual impact which serves in striking contrast with Natalie's naturalistic and subtle choreography," Tsao explained.
The third act, performed by both companies together to Philip Glass' Violin Concerto, sees the choreographers' reflections on their own unique cultural and dance heritages.
