Ivan Koh joined Singapore Dance Theatre as an apprentice in Sept 2017 (yes, belated – 2 months). We last saw him as one of the 4 chaps in blue (known as the “Blueberries”) in the last part of Serenade in BUTS 2015, so it’s good to see that he’s joined 🙂
Farewell
Round about the same time, Shi Yue Tony left SDT. This was a bit of shocking news, I think. He’d been in more solos and works new to SDT, like Tim Harbour’s Another Energy and Sticks and Stones; and also a memorable classical dancer in partner-works (Coppelia and BUTS’ recent Sleeping Beauty Act III come to mind right now, and his being a “happy jumper” from Sleeping Beauty 2015, that term not being mine), and also a memorable Mayor in Nutcracker 2016 (watching it x times resulted in viewer paying attention to background stories, if you remember). It’s not easy to build a great group of male dancers – we do see a number move in and out of SDT – and so, while it was not a very big surprise, it was a shock – because he’d been here only for 2 years.
We will miss watching his dancing – but he is no doubt following his heart, and we wish him all the best.
Yeah, do not know where the royal “we” comes from either. I presume to speak on behalf of my friends too 🙂
This is the fastest I’ve ever done a review (comparable to Stuttgart’s R&J, maybe?). Short memories must be exploited now. But it won’t become a habit, I’m afraid.
This year’s Passages was a short 1.5 hours (sans intermission), cramming small, high-powered works together. I think Unexpected B will be put out on BUTS sometime, perhaps next year. I also think Configurations pas de deux needs a second airing – it’s like that (imaginary) beautiful little cocktail dress you keep in your cupboard for those very special dinners with people you care about – I don’t think I own any such dresses, really.
We’ve got a Hello and Farewell coming up soon, but I got stuck in Stranger Things 2, which is the best thing on TV right now – just watch it. Another thing I didn’t get round to saying after the last post was that I’d really like to see Ma Ni in more of these things, Passages, or classicals, or whatnot. Her dancing’s always been very easy on the eye and quite eye-catching. It’s always been graceful and pleasant to watch – all the way from Don Q village to Dryads to Snowflakes. So…fingers crossed!
Passages 2017, here we go. That’s Etienne Ferrere on the cover. Brilliant new designs this year.
It was held at School of the Arts (SOTA). The auditorium’s a bit smaller than the Esplanade one, but there’s so much more legroom and you don’t feel like you’re going to topple over from one row to the next (Esplanade has that little weird buffer to stop people from falling over because the legroom area is too narrow, but it makes you think you’re going to trip), or as if someone is going to fall on top of you from above.
SOTA is some distance from the MRT, so I pity the folk who were trapped there when it stormed on Friday night (unless it didn’t storm in that area). Yes, the ladies’ overlooks this giant dark tree and yes, you will not feel inclined to look out. Yes, I think that area has its own Upside Down. But the studio is very nice (if very dark, when the lights are out, and I always wonder how the dancers know where to stand).
1. Incomparable Beauty
Costumes for incomparable above. Apparently designed and hand-dyed by a lady who used to dance, herself – and each costs $700?$900?
Incomparable Beauty is a hefty work, a veritable Thor’s hammer (watch Thor: Ragnarok if you haven’t yet! It’s very good). It seemed much shorter (digestible?) this time, though. May Yen Cheah danced the part formerly danced by Chua Bi Ru (though she is back in action, thank goodness) and Chihiro danced the part formerly danced by Maughan Jemesen, which was created for Rosa Park.
Every time I start blogging, work beckons. This is a sign to hurry up.
This gives the work a different flavour. You know how it begins, three dancers in a column, May Yen Cheah at the head, bourreing on the spot, and Huo Liang and Jason Carter queuing behind her. In parts of this dance, the light on the floor looks like the swirls left by blades on ice in a skating rink. She’s lifted up in the goddess pose – I can’t recall if it’s legs in second, thighs parallel to the ground and arms crossed in an X before her, her fingers curled (middle finger meeting thumb); or legs folded before her; or both.
It’s always interesting seeing a different version. I liked to imagine Bi Ru’s was a great goddess figure, staring out intensely at us – someone beheld as a great and incomparable beauty, but who was ultimately dependent on, and beholden to, the other two dancers, in some way.
May Yen Cheah’s is an ultimately human creature, and it’s pure dancing – incredible shapes and work from the dancers – the men supporting her (ring a ring of rosies) in her amazing arabesques and kicks back, or all with arms around each other as she slides across the ground, or lifting her horizontal to the ground so she can extend a leg. I think I mentioned in another post that this version had quite an incredible, interesting story possibility – that of a lady and her two loved ones. I’ve always wondered what it is about May Yen Cheah’s dancing that allows different stories to be inscribed in the mind when one watches these things…
I am going to go out on a limb and say that I think the music below was used for the pas de deux, you know. Even though in my head I keep thinking of Kwok Min Yi because of the hurried notes towards the end, which harken to the rush of music where ladies, posed in a 150 degree split, enter lifted, sideways, by the men (who hold their waists and the upper thigh that’s further from the ground) – or where the ladies swoop in lifted by the men, and are set down quickly with a couple of rapid hops, which is so unexpected it looks like an error but is in fact perfectly correct, which is mindblowing.
Chihiro’s version of the pas de deux is that of a brittle and pin-point accurate dance. She’s the sort who embodies the emotions of the dance as if it were a classical dance telling a story – you can feel her shudder when Kensuke’s hand draws near to her, and hear her gasp slightly at certain points. The dance flies by: it’s easy on the eye and Kensuke is a marvellous partner. What makes Chihiro’s dancing so powerful is that she makes eye contact. Is this not the dance where her hand is clasped in Kensuke’s and they both lean back? In my mind’s eye I remember her lowered, or leaning back, and I see her she lifting her eyes to his face as she is raised.
Stand-out moments only, now.
Is Chihiro’s and Kensuke’s pas de deux the one where the lady leaps right up into the man’s arms and she is clasped to him, her legs tucked under her in a kneeling position, and you can hear their thighs connect? I do believe so. It’s impressive.
I am always madly in love with the swooping ladies (Kwok Min Yi, May Yen Cheah, Li Jie, the last with her eyes cast upwards at the ceiling), and their amazing partnership with the men. (Sounds as if Ezio Bosso’s Thunders and Lightnings has a part in this dance, but I don’t know for sure.) Cute little moves in the later parts: when they turn their right leg inwards and bend it at the knee to look at the heel; when they are held at waist level and carried rapidly across the backdrop, heads bobbing sideways. I do like the partnership between Li Jie and Jason Carter, in particular: it looks quite effortless here.
Kensuke and Huo Liang get their jumps, and Huo Liang has a moment or two being rubbery in a corner and writhing. For works that are made specifically for SDT (always an honour, etc), there is always the utilisation of resources that are present i.e. if folk can do the spinning-jump or star-point jump (meaning: pinning a star on top of an Xmas tree with an extended arm and wide legs), this will largely be present. It sort of lends an air of familiarity to the proceedings, but there’s no harm done.
It’s fun that Etienne Ferrere rushes out to join them – the playground antics, lifting him in the air between the two of them; and there’s also steady pairwork between Etienne Ferrere and Jason Carter.
There’s also the line up seen in the picture above (occasionally irreverently termed the “Communist line-up” by my friend after those iconic socialist-era statues, one of which Singapore has near the waterworks or some such defence building, I think) — after which they fall out into a circle and lean out in different poses.
Here’s the one move that captured the attention: Kwok Min Yi, holding on to Etienne’s arm and using that to leap high into the air, throwing her head back. It’s less than a second and it’s stellar, because it happens so fast and the music is so quick that it’s really just part of a series of fast-tracked dancing that is the hallmark of the group pairwork.
Incomparable Beauty was one of the first major dances for which I recall seeing Kwok Min Yi taking a major part in a contemporary ballet, and there’s so much confidence and ease. Clarity of movement always, of course. Just 2 cents.
2. Triptych
“Transformations”. Apparently, the dancers were asked for come up with 3 gestures to signify before, during and after.
They march in, in a row: Reece Hudson, Elaine Heng, Beatrice, Huo Lian, Etienne, Kwok Min Yi, Nazer, May Yen Cheah. They’re wearing small shirts (dark green for some of the girls, like Beatrice) and army fatigue pants, and their shoes are soft beige boots (the colour of evaporated milk).
The first part is all very orderly. They’re dropping down to the ground in a plank position; they’re doing what looks like a yoga pose, balancing on just their hands, with a leg extended through the space between the arm and the torso (I think). There’s a little gesture they make, of moving the arm in front of the face and upper body, as if using that arm to draw out the shape of a rectangle or dip the hand into an invisible box. They form an orderly row to the audience’s right, then break out of line in random order, to make certain gestures, bodies leaning back, legs moving about. But I think they’re all making the same moves and eventually they fall back into a line somewhere further along the stage. And they repeat this again.
Subsequently they dance alone, or in different groups – e.g. Elaine, Beatrice, later joined by May Yen Cheah – in deliberate moves that contrast with the next segment of the dance; or Nazer as a sturdy one-man show.
When the beat picks up, we have the During, I suppose – the rush of combat. Whoever is not dancing lines the (audience’s) right or the back of the stage, backs to us, hands behind their backs, which is quite an effective use of the soldiers, I mean, dancers. There’s that slow-motion hurdle leap in the air with amazing hang-time [Elaine Heng and Reece Hudson; Elaine Heng and Beatrice Castenada]; the pairwork that sees Elaine Heng caught round the tummy as she falls forward, staring out at us, and held round the waist, her legs stiff as a board, her feet crossed stiffly at the ankle, corpse-like [Elaine Heng, Reece Hudson]. It feels like bits of these are about fighting – the partnerships, the battles – at one point, people jog about in unison, and the sound of their feet is like drums, raising the tension.
I think the After begins with everyone in a diamond formation, slowly retreating. This brings a lump to the throat: they’re making smaller hand gestures about their faces now, something similar to what happened in the beginning, but some of the gestures bring to mind people looking into mirrors and seeing someone different staring out, haunted, especially the gestures of hands to the head that always make me think of people smoothing out their hair, pretending to comb it, pretending to be normal again in the After.
The music here is made of explosive beats, and is quite enjoyable – it sounds like a pop beat, and is more lively, and everyone dances as a group at first, in the centre. I think they even start making little jumps towards the back and back out again.
The dancers each get their own solos or group dances, and while whoever is dancing takes centre stage, the rest will move forward (or retreat?) in the diamond shape, on the audience’s right. Whoever is done with their moment in the spotlight lines the back of the stage, back to us again. At one point (Nazer and Min Yi’s pas de deux), the other dancers line the front, facing us.
It’s operatic , a frenzy of movement – the haunted looks on Reece Hudson’s and Huo Liang’s faces and the energy in their dancing bring out some sort of inner turmoil. There are the little moves that stay in the mind, like May Yen Cheah in a sitting position, knees bent, swept along unwillingly by 2 male dancers, with her feet dragged across the ground, as if moved by, and struggling against, forces that she can’t see or fight. Beatrice Castenada’s fast footwork, kicking in little circles on the floor as she moves backwards; Elaine Heng jumping in the air, both legs tucked under and ankles crossed, and (I think) switching her feet in mid-air (!); Huo Liang doing the same but when jumping with both legs extended and ankles crossed; Kwok Min Yi leaping wildly through the air, flinging her arms back and forwards. Just as I was thinking that this was one of the most contemporary-ish of the contemporary ballets I’d seen so far, Etienne leapt towards the back of the stage in a giant ballet leap, soaring through the air; and the other men repeated this across the stage.
At the end, for curtain call, everyone’s really pretty strained and sober. They bow, one by one, starting from alternate ends of the stage each time. Then they march out the same way they came.
This is something that I expect will see the light of day again in Masterpiece in Motion.
3. Configurations pas de deux
Singapore Dance Theatre has not shown the whole of Configurations before. It requires…seven? ten? or more men. It was originally made for, and commissioned by, Mikhail Baryshnikov, to be danced by American Ballet Theatre.
Here’s an article on it, when it was staged by Washington Ballet for the first time.
Here’s the music, thanks to the article above. It’s the Canzone: Moderato portion, from 12:52. Oh, the goosebumps!
Kenya walks in slowly from the audience’s left, and Chihiro, from the audience’s right. Blue lighting. The man’s costume scoops downwards in the back, and the lady’s Grecian-esque dress has a gorgeous subtle brass sheen in a triangle across the chest. This is about a couple parting for some reason (such sweet sorrow), though not forever. You feel as if you’re watching one of those old Balanchine DVDs of Four Temperaments – the gracious delicate elegance. Kenya in his steady, assured leaps, taking the time and tempo in his stride.
This is an incredible dance that looks current though it was choreographed a long time ago.
I feel as if I could talk about them twining and pining, about Chihiro reaching out and clasping his hand, and slowly squatting on one leg while stretching out the other, looking as if she’s in actual physical pain at their impending separation, as if it tears at her very bones.
There’s this feeling of watching a great painting unfold, like in that moment when they appear to be posing ala the God and Man painting. But it’s not mere two marble statues. When you see the two in the centre of the stage together (and realise the X marks the spot of the exact centre line of the stage), and Kenya glances upwards, that you suddenly know that you are in the presence of something very special. It’s an exquisite vision, and you have been invited to watch it.
Would that I could remember the beautiful gorgeous pairwork, the shapes, she leaning against him as she arcs her legs. Here’s a little snippet from Chihiro’s instagram, including one of my favourite moments, the lean with the leg crossed at the ankle and one arm delicately flicking out.
While we’re at it, here’s an interview with Chihiro by Moxie: ““I don’t use thick padding because I like to feel the floor” – ! and, “I only wanted to dance”.
“B” stands for Beethoven. I do think of it as Unexpected Bee. They float and sting like bees, the dancers – this work runs on and on like that bumblebee song.
Here we go with the music. The costumes are lovely: zipped-up black tunic-dresses with calf-length skirts, and, for both the men and ladies, open laser-cut shapes in the front to reveal a beige-coloured layer below.
It’s Akira and Kana with Huo Liang and Kensuke respectively who open the show, I think. I remember best the music from 1:55.
This is pretty feet – Akira’s and Kana’s style of dancing is light, pretty and graceful, and the choreography makes good use of it to surprise you. There’s a fabulous use of hinge work with bent arms and elbows as joints, and hands: gentle music calls for the partners to face each other, and one to place his hand on her shoulder and the other to place her hand on his elbow. Then it all breaks loose – there’s using feet and hands to push people around tenderly so they tumble about loosely, there are ladies seated on the ground using men’s elbows to pivot themselves. There’s always something delightful going on: an extended bent knee ending in a foot that’s pointed, then goes flat, then the partners meet again and the gentlemen kneel with one bent knee, so that the ladies rest across their thighs and curve their legs up like giant scorpions, which is hands-down one of my 101 favourite parts about this dance.
This is the kind of dance where ladies lie stomach-down on their partners’ backs and roll off quickly. Or where the men lie on the ground upside down on their shoulders and heads, holding their waists with their hands while the ladies whirl about on the stage. After all, Shimazaki Toru did the tender choreography of Blue Snow. In a way, he is into the little movements like Christina Chan, but he works on hinges and the whole body as limbs and torso in a different way.
Shan Del Vecchio and Yeo Chan Yee, Chua Bi Ru and Reece Hudson.
Yeo Chan Yee brings all the life and goods to the table with her in this dance, vivid and lively – throwing her all into the dance. Shan Del Vecchio is in good glorious form – he has a quirky rap-beat feel in his dancing, which he puts to good use. When the music slows, the couples waltz and it is all very feel-good, but you know that the dance never takes itself too seriously.
I’m completely going off chronology, I’m sure, because I know at some point in time, Jeremie Gan rolls in, head-over-heels, and Justin does, too, and Tanaka Nanase and Elaine Heng join them respectively. It’s delightful and energetic, and the ladies’ feet are always nifty and light.
Four women next – Akira, Kana, Bi Ru, Yeo Chan Yee. They are very good dancers. It’s good to see Bi Ru back in action, bringing her brand of life and dancing back to the stage. We also get to see Ruth Austin and Xu Lei Ting dancing.
It’s always good to see more folk dancing – Jeremie Gan and Ruth Austin, this time, in a contemporary ballet. Both are lovely dancers to watch – Jeremie has a sturdy style and Ruth Austin’s dancing is beautiful, with those sweeping arms and graceful moves that draw the eye. I do hope to see more of them in upcoming works!
Kensuke and Nanase have a good pas de deux together with chemistry borne of Bluebird dancing. It’s always fun to watch them together.
Clockwork mechanisms – that’s what I wanted to say earlier, about Shimazaki Toru. It’s not mechanical – I mean that it’s fascinating and unbelievably pretty, like those clocks in the windows. Such choreography – deft and blindingly, secretly complex because you wouldn’t be able to dream it up for yourself. This is my excuse for why I can never remember it as well as I’d like to.
Reece and Bi Ru have a part all to themelves, and this is interesting. Theirs are quick and quirky times. They know what it’s all about. They have got their story together. They are the couple that fights and loves to fight, that lives off their bickering. They are both that breed of very expressive, story-driven, character-driven actor/actress type that chews up the music and spits it out in a character. Remember them in last year’s Passages?
It’s good to see them feed off each other’s energy, but they never go down in a fireball – they are in control. Here’s Reece bent double, clutching the insides of his knees, while Bi Ru triumphantly places her hand on his back and minces in fake high-heels in front of him, before also dropping the pretense of false triumph and being over, too. Fierce and furious kicks in the air; she lying on his back when he’s on the ground; he rolling onto her back in turn – tit-for-tat.
This is going to be really interesting if you think about it, because the question comes up as to whether, if one is of this expressive mimic sort, how will the ballet look if your partner matches that, or if your partner is of a different sort?
If you watch Bi Ru closely in this piece and sweep your eye across the crowd, you’ll realise it’s quite humorous and striking, how she digests the music and character, and dances it all out. Just that little extra fling-back of the head, or the eyes lifted to the ceiling when the hand is raised.
At the end, they make it to a quiet corner and seem to reconcile, standing on the sole patch of stage that is not pitch-black – illuminated by a rectangle of bright white light that falls on this finally-peaceful couple.
When the light goes off, a matching rectangle falls on Xu Lei Ting, who appears to be having a ball of a time acting as someone with a headache – then an earache – as she makes her way in agony to the centre of the stage; and behind her, the side of the stage spits out a man. Akira makes her way with a headache across the stage (somewhere towards the middle of the stage) while Huo Liang is spat out from the (audience’s) left. All is misery until the couples meet each other.
Later, all the ladies take to the stage, looking like Austenian women, mincing about and lifting their legs so their skirts fan out. The smiles are crazy wide and over-the-top on purpose, because that’s not what you’d be looking for from a typical classical music piece.
This morphs into happy couples, like piano keys jangling together, smiling big wide fake smiles and pretending to be in the highest of spirits, and wiggling their hands as if they’re playing the piano. When all goes dark, they retreat into the shadows. Life in the shadows sees some couples remaining happy (Ruth Austin cradled in Justin Zee’s embrace) and the unsettling quadrangle where Elaine Heng is sought after by Jeremie Gan and does not quite want to return to Kensuke, who is taken aback by her reluctance, while Akira watches in dismay. The couples who are not in a love square watch Shan Del Vecchio and Yeo Chan Yee dance seemingly happily before they return to the row at the back. A bar of bright white light falls before the couples, and they realise it’s time to shine again – but then darkness falls again soon and it’s another couple’s time to take centre stage. I think it’s the Reece and Bi Ru show again.
At the very end, all the ladies dance and then it ends with them turning around, and Bi Ru gives us a thumbs-up and flashes the audience a big grin, then all goes black. A wave of appreciative laughter; the lights go back on and all the girls give us big grins and a thumbs-up — which tickles the audience — and then the lights go out again. When they’re back on again, everyone’s ready for the curtain call.
Unexpected B is something that I expect (heh heh) to see at next year’s BUTS, if Shimazaki Toru is available and willing. You see, it’s really quite the spectacle and it is lively, adorable, gorgeous, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and is quite a rollicking good show.
I know Blue Snow is varied, and romantic, lyrical and unpredictable.
Unexpected B, though, could very fast become an audience favourite.
I’m sorry to think of Incomparable Beauty going back into the closet, because it’s a very special and clever work. But it will. It’s been aired 3 times already, I think.
Triptych may not appear for another year – perhaps too sober for the 30th anniversary.
Configurations is a drool-worthy piece, a gem, a rarity that has not been put out for a long time, for reasons. For what it’s worth, now may be the time to mine it a little more.
Unexpected B is a crowd-pleaser and while it was unexpectedly long, I think it captured the audience’s attention and hearts.
I’m not going to wait for Passages 2017 to predict. If we think it, we can wing it. I’m glad I’m done with the Ballet Under the Stars 2017 reviews, though. To be honest, I was driven by the utter shame and horror that I had so readily forgotten so much of Masterpiece in Motion 2016.
Of course, I’ll probably hafta revise this after Passages, if I get to see Passages.
Classical Ballet – Longs
Hopes
1. Romeo and Juliet, also because it seems logical. No, who are we kidding? The music and choreography are spectacular.
2. Zero, zilch, nada. Of course I’d love to see Don Quixote again, but I’m not sure it’ll be up for the taking. What I do think is that if they put up Don Quixote – perhaps Beatrice Castaneda could be Cupid?
Likely to show, in order of likelihood
1. Romeo and Juliet. The last time they staged this was in 2014, and it seems almost too obvious if they stage it in 2018, but it’s by Goh Choo San, and it’s really good. I don’t know if there’s a preference to not open the year with a tragedy, though. I don’t think they’ll want to open with Coppelia again.
2. Nutcracker. Since it’s supposed to become a tradition, and it generates income. Though…economy…likely audience…Well, who’s to say? It’s got room for 3 casts, which might be good.
3. Giselle. Should you really sandwich the 30th Anniversary between two tragedies? Well, if they’re good…. If BUTS is once more held during the 7th month in Fort Canning, should it involve Giselle? Not for me to decide. Giselle is included solely by virtue of statistics, i.e. looking backwards over the last x years, we’ve not performed it that frequently. But it was last staged in 2013, so I’m also not sure if we want to have it up in both the 25th and the 30th Anniversary Years.
4. Sleeping Beauty. A little of my money is actually on Sleeping Beauty for end 2018 or early 2019, though there must be a capacity for it. They’ve just run through Act III, and you can see that either as a sign that they’re getting ready for it or that they’re putting it to bed for a while because the crowd has seen Act III and may not return for seconds next year.
Classical Ballet – Shorts
Hopes
1. Concerto Barocco
2. Theoretically, Serenade. In reality, anything is fine. Seriously. Oh – Bournonville is lovely, though. Yes, this goes second, and third goes to…
3. Allegro Brilliante, simply because I haven’t seen it for years. I’ve no terribly strong memory of Divertimento No. 15, which I keep thinking is DivertissimoNo. 15.
Likely to show (I don’t know likelihood)
1. Allegro Brilliante – last seen in 2014, I believe. I’m not sure we have the capacity for Theme and Variations (last seen in 2014) or Serenade (last seen in 2015), though if we did, those would be absolute firecrackers. Almost definitely for sure, there will be a stuffing of Balanchines because a 30th Year will probably have, apart from new pieces, some old gems that we’ve managed to acquire. I’m putting some money on old gems in the Contemporary/ Neo-classical side.
2. Concerto Barroco – see above. But we last saw it in 2015, so I am not too sure.
3. Schubert Symphony – because it’s good, and it’s by Goh Choo San. But it’ll only have rested for a year, so I highly doubt, and I am putting very little money on this.
4. I’m not very familiar with this, so I’ll pass on it. I rather think there must be a lot of works that we’re not familiar with, and which may be good to bring out into the light, together with new works. Paquita‘s great, but it’s had 2 very good years already.
Neo-classical/ Contemporary
Hopes
1. Rubies. It’s horribly difficult, etc. Is there anything that isn’t? But it’s excellent. It was last seen in 2015, though, which was rather recent.
2. Lambarena. I know, we’ve only just seen it (2015). But, like Rubies, it’s excellent, and a good piece of work to display.
3. Double Contrasts. It was just seen in 2015. Ooh, that was my favourite Ballet Under the Stars. Oh, not counting the 2014 Contemporary weekend.
3. In one corner together – Chant, Winds of Zephyrus, Opus 25, Bittersweet. Simply because I’d like to see them again. I think Bittersweet may actually be doable now, but then again, I’m not acquainted with reality. I doubt we’ll do Fives by Goh Choo San, since it was performed for the 25th Anniversary. I doubt we’ll have Opus 25, too.
Likely to show, in no order of likelihood
I’m thinking not only of works that were built on SDT, but also things from outside brought in from SDT. To showcase different things. Also, newish things that not everyone may have seen, especially if they’ve only seen these at small events. It is even possible that because of the Anniversary, there will not be two BUTS weekends, or not two massive ones anyway (maybe it’s hard to cut down to one weekend, because then going back up will be difficult e.g. in 2019, audiences may forget – but then the workload will be massive).
1. The new work by Shimazaki Toru, and/or Blue Snow by Shimazaki Toru. I doubt we’ll see Absence of Story – unless it’s at BUTS, but it’s quite a fragile and delicate work, and I notice we’re moving away from those at BUTS. The crowd needs to see works that are visible from the back of the park.
2. Works by the Kirichenko Twins that were performed on the Switzerland Tour
3. Another Energy by Timothy Harbour, perhaps for BUTS
4. Rubies, because. There’s no need for a reason to take your jewels out to the gala. I considered Four Temperaments, since we’ve just acquired it – perhaps to BUTS. I can’t predict the patterns now – some years, things of massive world-shaking impact were given a break (Age of Innocence, Organ Concerto), but in other years, they were allowed to repeat themselves (perhaps those where it was easier to re-stage them).
5. Something by Edwaard Liang – not 13th Heaven, since it’s just shown. Perhaps Winds, or one of the earlier ones. Both of these were created for SDT.
6. A piece by Val Caniparoli. O heavens, I’ve misspelt his name terribly for ages. As I have countless other unfortunate people 😦 I try to go back to correct, but sometimes the posts hang and refuse to let me change them. Honestly, I think we should bring out Lambarena, because it’s a lively work. But I suspect it will be Chant because sufficient time has passed, and it has that unique gamelan soundtrack.
We shan’t be showing Triptych, surely. It’s new, but we never do 2 years straight of the same work by him or Edwaard Liang or Nils Christe, I realise. Besides, it’s about war. Those are 2 reasons why I’m not putting Symphony in Three Movements in, though I rather think it’s quite a resoundingly astoundingly earth-shattering work worth showing for BUTS – and I think it has a fairly strong chance of re-appearing sometime soonish. It may turn up in 2019. It’s almost similar to Organ Concerto in costumes, and so on.
7. We haven’t shown anything by Natalie Weir this year. Either something new, or 4Seasons, which hates me. Maybe Bittersweet, for Passages – again, depending on doability.
8. New works + past pieces like Beginnings by Goh Choo San.
I know really very little. Let’s see how this goes.
Oops. It was at Fort Canning Green, not Battle Box. Fort Canning Green — the place with the Gothic Gate, cluster of huge headstones in a corner (facing the frankly pretty good Port-a-loos), and the rows of headstones all round the sides.
The gorgeous pamphlet cover — also the poster — for Ballet Under the Stars (BUTS) 2017. That is Li Jie in a fantabulously beautiful leap. Though the classical poster was the focus, there was pleasantly good turnout for the contemporary nights.
Here’s the youtube video for the first weekend:
Edited the Archives to put up the Passages 2015 reviews, because I missed them out the last time, and because Sticks and Stones first (and last) showed in Passages 2015.
I love SDT’s contemporary and neoclassical ballet performances, but for me, it’s like an 8-bit (beat?) memory loading 18 TB. Here’s a pamphlet. No pictures of costumes, for obvious reasons. Black pants and the basket wires.
I am afeared you are in for a TL;DR, but there’s so much to say about the dancing and dancers!
A line of stick-holders (little tubes on stands) waits at the back. (The stones are there too, in the shadows). The men enter from the right-hand side, sticks in hand, and line up in an inverse triangle, backs to us, Jason Carter at the tip of the triangle. They hold the sticks up before them, and three orange lights on either side of the stage illuminate the top half of the sticks so that they look like Pocky orange-flavoured sticks.
Part 1: The Quiet Tribe
The sticks sway – almost messily at first, but slowly, a discernible pattern emerges: alternate rows to the left and the right, like slow pendulums. The music starts, and builds up: a thrumming grasshopper beat. The music is pure percussion. Imagine something like this video below. I’m quite pleased because it really sounds quite like the soundtrack. But counting beats to this is fiendish.
Slow and steady, the predator in the forest and field – that’s the opening half. Everyone in a community, acting as one huddled primitive force. The humans, with their sticks.
After a while, the men huddle at the back and Huo Liang pops up above the crowd, peering out, supported on folks’ thighs, before he drops back down. All turn, and they crouch, pressing one clawed hand down before them — primitive, primal. Still crouched, they stretch an arm out to the (audience’s) left, retract it; turn (to the audience’s) right; turn to face a diagonal, backs half to us, gently rise up and down on their toes, their heels thudding gently on the ground in a communal tribal heartbeat.
It’s amazing what one can do with these long bamboo sticks: lean the sticks out at an angle; hold the sticks up and slowly sink down while the hands climb down the sticks rapidly; and hold back the sticks as everyone snarls to the right.
The subtlest of movements – a leg* that bends in at the hip and knee, then slowly opens out at the hip, bent at the knee, in a slow brushing movement. The formation falls out, forms another shape – a diamond? and the hands rush down the stick, fingers flickering as if playing a piano – and the formation spreads out across the stage again.
*An example of disappearing memory is that I used to think this was the audience’s right but now I think it might be left. Whatever memory I have is used to remember “bike chain” so I can google the Belle and Sebastian song I liked in school.
A deliberate, careful use of energy, stored up, pent up – exploding, but more like ripples of a thunderstorm over a pond as the men crouch about the sticks, lie down and stretch a right leg out and raise it a little off the ground just by pushing off the ground with the toes of that foot in full turnout — all the while, conscious to keep the sticks in the same pattern, whether upright or leaning down in succession.
Up they go again – here are the sticks flat across their shoulders like the poles of samsui women; here the sticks go poking about the ground as if they are diggers. Men holding the poles and sliding straight down to the ground in splits, or else huddling in a group to the left of the stage (audience) while a few of them (Nazer, Kensuke, etc) leap up onto the others’ backs to peer out.
Let’s say you read the summary above and you signed up for raw cutting-edge visceral clawing, brutal and red. You might say Well, what’s this all about? What it’s all about is a curious sophistication and order and structure in this first half, which immediately distinguishes it from an easy Lord of the Flies reading. Frankly, when I first saw it, I felt a little thrown off-balance, because, like that meme says, “Expectation: Reality”. I thought I would be in for a rash (rash is the word, great unsettled throwing down of sticks / large spots of scarlet colour) of motion, and yet here we were, stuck in the middle with this careful, not-even-intimidating display. But perhaps that’s what matters – I don’t have a proper choreographer’s mind, so it is necessary that what I imagine the work to be is not what I see. One should always be surprised. And it takes an incredible amount of energy it takes to even make such controlled movements.
Here’s another comment: the lights give it that overall murky jungle atmosphere and helps humans with no contemporary mind make up their stories for their memories. And it helps – casting shadows, hiding the stick-holders and stones, focusing our eyes on the specific dancers. But if you see it in full light of the studio, it’s actually shockingly mesmerizing, and you feel the full strength of the choreography, rather than the subtle heat of jungle twilight. I suppose it’s the latter effect we are going for.
Huddled and gazing out, safe in their circle – then the men who have clambered out slide down fast and everyone now holds out their sticks to the (audience’s) right, making little circles in the mud, sifting it.
Now look closely, because I like how the sticks are used in this next part of the dance. The men hold them out such that the tips of the sticks meet in a vertex, a point facing (the audience’s) right – everybody working in unison together to achieve one goal. Then the sticks unfold in a careful pattern, and the men form a circle with their sticks upright. The domino effect: lunging in succession, leaning the sticks forward; leaning back; pushing sticks into the circle to form a little wigwam.
Patterns, patterns: breaking out into line formation with sticks across their shoulders, arms going up in succession. Lining up in a straight row on the (audience’s) far right, to poke at the soil with their sticks and lift them – the timing is impeccable and so controlled, in staggered steps – Jason Carter leading the pack in lifting his stick first, then the man behind him, and so on. A thousand arms, in slow motion.
Each man’s eyes follows the tip of the stick, or of the stick before his, to ensure that there’s an exact distance between each stick as its tip inscribes an arc from the dancer’s left (audience’s right) to his right, and then he quickly and inobtrusively takes his place in a line as the front dancer (Jason) restarts the process of swinging the stick in a full arc and the dancer behind picks up his stick and so on, so that the audience is swept up in this and doesn’t notice the chaps at the back falling into line; so that it looks like magic. They do this three times until they’ve made their way to the end of the stage.
Nazer falls out of the line first, without the stick (his is with Shan Del Vecchio) – a deviation from the norm, perhaps preparing the mind for what’s next. Slow, controlled, powerful moves – falling to the ground, rising again and stretching.
Finally, the line folds into itself, with Jason Carter making his way into the centre while Kensuke holds Kenya’s stick (see picture above) and Kenya falls into the centre of a semi-circle, bent double, while the men lower their sticks and rest the tips on his back.
Part 2: Into the Woods
And oh goodness, oh good, the music changes from grasshoppers cutting grass and praying mantises with their lovable front paws (in the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep♪) to bamboo drum beats (how is that any easier to count to!). Look at the video below! ‘Tis a number of drummers, and it’s quite fascinating.
Now we enter the realm of the solos. I had to make up some images along the way. No offence meant. Parts of it sound like this, especially at the beginning:
The men fall back and slot the poles into the stick-holders at the back. They are now the backdrop and they lean the poles in and out rhythmically as Kenya emerges. Smooth and strong, and steady. The one-legged one-arm reach, torso stretched almost horizontal and one leg extended – and when the beat throws out a sudden surprising double-count (0:33?), just when Kenya, back to us, is frozen on one leg, arms clutched close, he shoots out two snake-like arms and you can almost imagine the hiss in the music. The seemingly endless spin with clasped hands overhead (I think) follows, and the clean clear strong leaps.
When Nakamura Kenya first performed this, it was one of the first few contemporary solos I remembered him in (not a group as in Zephyrus, and not a pas de deux as in Shadow’s Edge). What’s interesting is that his voice for contemporary has sort of matured and grown. Imagine shadow-boxing – the agility, the deftness. A hand fitting into a glove and finding its own strength.
Kenya is the crouching tiger by the water, swiping up sprays of water, clawing at the air, kicking up water as he splashes into the river. When he vanishes back into the forest of bamboo poles, Justin Zee breaks out into the light.
Justin is, simply put, really good to watch. He is the bird of paradise in the forest – he treads through the grass, he kicks out a leg lyrically and holds it there for a great fraction of a second; he leans forward, facing us and kicks a bent back leg right up, like a giant question mark, like a tail feather. Arms whirling and twisting like fan-tail feathers, every breath and every expression rolling out of his fingertips and toes before he ducks back into the crowd.
Shan Del Vecchio and Reece Hudson next. Hakuna matata. The wild and wriggly, crazy moves of folk shaking out their limbs – imagine bathroom singing converted to bedroom dancing, but hugely energetic – great opening legs, hops on one leg while wriggling extended limbs. Thirsty creatures of the forest cupping water to their lips. This is good casting: Shan Del Vecchio has a remarkable sharp, dapper, contemporary style and Reece Hudson is quite an eye-catching revelation in this, throwing himself into it with a fair amount of abandon – rubbery limbs flailing. The serious pantomime clowns.
When they complete their lengthy routine, Nazer, Justin Zee and Miura Takeaki step out to do a routine that’s a little more toned down than the one before that — some synchronized movements, including rolling on the ground. Unexpectedly, they end up in a corner on the (audience’s) right under a big white beam, mimicking various expressions – great mirth, demonstrated by laughing with huge false smiles; great angst, by tucking their foreheads into their hands; more silent fake laughter as they clutch their stomachs and sway from side to side. It reminded me of those paintings by a Chinese artist that you sometimes see in the galleries, of the people with those big, fake smiles. It also brought to mind that Chinese phrase, 喜怒哀乐 – four emotions (happiness, rage, sorrow, joy). Except without the rage.
As they retreat into the darkness, Peter Allen and Yorozu Kensuke, Reece Hudson and Etienne Ferrere come out into a light on the (audience’s) left for a pairwork segment: lifts by the waist while the chap being held kicks his legs round in an arc; those ‘hits’ on the jaw or side of the face to make the other person turn – a harsher version of the head-turn seen in male-female pas de deux where one puts one’s hand on top of the crouching partner’s head and turns the wrist as if fixing a bottle cap, and the partner turns, seen in one of Edwaard Liang’s works, I think.
This is an all-male ensemble, and it’s much appreciated because we get to see them dancing in solos and pairs much more than in a standard full-length classical, and it’s nice to see how everyone’s grown with time. There’s a different flavour to the pairwork.
All the other men flood the stage then, in pairs, to do some of the same – lifts, jumps, and turning the other partner. Kenya and Nazer; Shan and Shi Yue Tony, for instance. I think.
When they exit, they leave Shi Yue behind them, in a superb solo. Twisting turns on a leg; that amazing running kick-up where his hand touches his foot as his long leg* kicks up to 160 degrees. Collapsing to the ground, twitching and writhing, his head and feet rising, falling back again – rousing himself up by hand to heart with a twitch upwards. The dance of a crazed, slightly feral creature, shaking his head about, and falling emphatically to the ground; but Shi Yue never loses his elegance and grace, and that’s what leaves a lasting impression in the memory. It is always a pleasure to watch someone take on solos that stick in the mind.
*Shi Yue is one of the tallest men in the company.
Huo Liang leaps out to join him from the (audience’s) right, and together, they enter those kicks and leaps with the curved backs, those high jumps. Huo Liang has worked tirelessly – I remember him from 2013’s Nutcracker, so it’s been a few years – and he is now one of the go-to people for the leaps and jumps and the unstoppable corkscrew spins. Huo Liang has a distinctive shape in his jumps and leaps – you can see that his eye and his line travels far beyond the corners of the stage. Shi Yue’s version is, interestingly, more rounded and feral – you know what I’ve said before about how he dances.
Crazed – that’s the word that could apply to the choreography in Jason Carter’s solo. Mincing feet that follow an incredibly quick beat, but he’s bent almost double, his back curved. When he’s upright, sometimes he seems to be following his arm or his hand wherever it leads him, as if it has a manic life of its own. It’s an almost comical nonsensical dance, but it’s deeply entertaining, how he manages to depict this instead of making it mere arm motions. Here he is staring out at us madly while his feet quickly skedaddle to the side. The duck-walk, the crazy man with the twitching legs, the man who falls to a plank suddenly while his feet quickly pound about in a pattern, cross-over and back again, on the ground, who writhes about, then is back up again, curved back bent as a snail’s, looking down at his hands which lie open as if he is reading a book.
The other men enter, pounding the ground as he does, mincing up and down with their eyes on their book-hands – I’m reminded of “World Order”, the Japanese performing group.
When everyone clears the stage, Shan Del Vecchio and Miura Takeaki enter with their poles; the latter taking the part previously played so compactly and tightly by Stefaan Morrow. This is the flying fish edition: the one where the men hang on to the poles and kick out sideways in a breathtaking blink; where the men suddenly let go of the poles for a fraction of a breath before grabbing them again. An exercise in dexterity and speed. Same comments for Shan Del Vecchio as above. Miura Takeaki dances his part lightly, with small moves capturing the sound – and his kicks in the air are deft.
Reece Hudson’s up next, in an inspired performance that has the eye glued to him. It feels as if he has found a magic ingredient, that quality that sets him apart from everyone else, and he has mined it perfectly in this. We talked about this before – in last year’s choreographic workshop and Passages. It’s a weird and wacky solo, curiously inventive in choreography at moments, such as the broken-knee walk, where he seems to be walking ordinarily from our left to right – but then he clutches at the backs of his knees as they suddenly give; or when he appears to be fighting an invisible enemy – wide-eyed, staring. Every wriggly line and move is expressive without being over-wrought.
When the other chaps enter, there’s a fairly comical bit – those hand-swiping, jiving movements reminiscent of the minor hip-hop moves in Swipe. Where are the stones? Men lie down and rock from side to side in time with the beat, putting their hands and arms up squarely to meet – fingertip to fingertip. It’s the little things, like how they get up, that disappear through the cracks in the mind – but they do, at least, manage to collect their stones somewhere – I’ve only ever noticed it happening after they rush in from the back, so I’ve always thought it comes in then. But who knows – there could be a box of stones somewhere at the side. They do set the stones down gently at times when on the ground – but otherwise, the stone is clutched in one hand as they punch the air and writhe, throw their torsos about in the air, fling their heads, and kick about. Kenya is nifty and nimble, and Peter Allen puts up a spirited show throughout the performance.
Right at the very end, they rush up in a line, put down their stones loudly, and, almost bent-double exit slowly backwards into the darkness.
That was long, because I had occasion to remember things. The other dances should be relatively shorter, as the ticker-tape grows short.
If I had to rewatch any part again – in no order of priority:
(a) Kenya suddenly throwing out his arms + Justin Zee’s solo
(b) Shi Yue’s solo
(c) Reece Hudson’s riveting solo.
(d) Jason Carter’s solo, followed by the men as a group after that.
(e) The opening half, sticks and all – especially the domino effect and the slow-mo movement of sticks across the stage, eyes following the tips of the sticks.
I think that although this work requires superb concentration and has its merits, the payoff is actually quite low – the audience each time seems mildly baffled, perhaps having seen that Reality did not meet its Expectation. But I do appreciate the ridiculous amount of effort required to keep count to nothing but beats – so hats off to the dancers, and to the original dancers as well, who had to put up with changes in choreography and all manners of things that should rightly terrify the performer.
Incandescent Dream by Max Chen has what Mr Janek Schergen calls pretty much the ideal cast for it, apparently. Six dancers in blue: full body suits for the men, to the wrists and ankles; long swishy skirts for the ladies. A groundsheet to the corner right of the audience, and it begins in silence.
Why silence again, a friend sighed, Bliss started with silence too. That thought crossed my mind, too. ETA: But this is a great piece – please read on.
What’s Incandescent Dream? I rely on the badly-taken picture of the brochure again (so you don’t have to scroll down, and neither do I). Okay, no, Mr Janek Schergen says that Rosa Park plays a girl who’s dreaming, and she meets people in her dream.
It’s funny, after all that longing to talk about Incandescent, my mind draws a blank tonight.
The above was written 2 years ago. Now, 2 years on, we can just talk about the general details without feeling stressed.
An awesome dream Tatiana’s having…
At one corner of the stage, Rosa Park lies on a white sheet that the dancers had helped to lay out. It looks like a cumbersome prop, but this is one ingenious dance, and it is perfectly necessary. Here are some pictures at the link below:
As the dancers enter, they do various moves in the silence. The soundtrack for this dance is a gorgeous original piano piece.
Rosa Park is dreaming, isn’t she? She awakens and she joins them, and the cloth is lifted and they dance under it – and as everyone else hides behind it, Rosa is lifted above it so that she appears to be soaring. There’s a great deal of dancing around and manipulation of the cloth.. I recall Zhao Jun being flipped head over heels by Lewis and Kenya.
She is set down to dance by herself for a while, then she disappears (offstage?) and Chihiro appears, a sweet creature who is wandering through the dream happily. When Rosa emerges and sees her, it’s as if Chihiro is the playful childhood friend she’s been searching for in real life, who reappears in her dreams and pulls her out to play, and they dance together happily, mirroring each other. It’s a little wistful and sad, almost – you can feel that lure, that draw of the dream life calling out to Rosa’s character, when you look at her blissful smile and Chihiro’s almost-mischievous child-like character.
Kenya appears, and he and Chihiro dance. I can’t quite recall, but I feel as if Rosa Park is a little out of this relationship, and that lends a little note of discordance to the atmosphere.
Everyone vanishes. There’s a menacing clash of piano keys, and Zhao Jun appears. The music here is largely of the discordant variety. It’s a little amusing as Rosa creeps past Zhao Jun, trying to avoid looking at him as he contorts himself into various shapes that are weird and wonderful and kooky, ala Alice in Wonderland. Rosa in Wonderland, with Zhao Jun as a Joker off a pack of cards, making her unsettled and uneasy.
This terror of the joker is soon replaced as Lewis and Kenya emerge and Zhao Jun retreats, and Rosa watches Lewis and Kenya dance. I recall that the choreography for the pas de deux(es?) in this piece was exceptional.
Now comes the “fun couple” – Bi Ru and Lewis Gardner, looking awesome and charming and giggly in their little bubble of a world for two. Rosa is charmed by their healthy, glowing joy and is drawn to join in, but she is not part of it. They form a brief circle of 3, but it soon breaks, for the fun couple, however charming they are, have eyes only for each other, and Rosa realizes that.
The fun couple fades away and is replaced by Kenya and Chihiro, who are an equally magnetic couple that attract Rosa’s attention again. She and Kenya have an amazing pas de deux – I recall him lifting her – and I think someone (Rosa??) doing a sort of cartwheel partway in a turn.
But she’s not part of this tender loving couple either, and it’s heartbreaking when she realizes this.
The dream has ceased to be the dream …
At some point in time, the sheet has found its way back to the corner.
The others float out and crawl slowly towards it. I do remember Lewis’ incredible arched foot as he crawls towards it, and Rosa returns to her corner on it, and a white spotlight falls on her? . . . and it’s lights out..
I think that’s how it ends.
Here’s an idea. . . bring it back… . . then we can all recollect this fabulous incandescent dream together.
It is possibly the most fabulous and amazing and pretty and creative and shiny thing I’d seen up to that point. It is incandescent, indeed. It’s sits in that little bottle of creations I’d love to see again, like Zin! and it resides in the little room in my heart that is carved out for the definitive roles that stick in the mind forever (Shimizu Sakura as Arabian; Iori Araya as Fate; ranks which Sun Hong Lei has joined, as Prayer).
The music is a wonder as well, and it’s too bad it isn’t available anywhere, because it was written and recorded by (I think) the choreographer’s friend.
Good choreography, as always. Interesting pairings this round, though the group pair-work could have been a bit smoother. This is a short work, suitable for BUTS and Passages. Brought to mind longer works like 4Seasons, Age of Innocence and Lambarena — they carry a similar emotional quality.
The men emerge first, led by Nakamura Kenya, through a gap between black curtains. Legs open squarely as the men jump; clutched arms behind the back and one arm straight out behind, ala the dance move known as the dab (though not quite). Very cool, and powerful. They’re wearing very thick knee guards, perhaps to protect them from the strain.
Elaine Heng and May Yen Cheah, too, wear knee guards in their alternating role as Mother Earth / Mother Nature (imagination, life is your creation…i.e. all this is made up by the viewer). Like the men, they wear huge billowing pants, which make for absolutely stunning images when they kick up a leg (e.g. behind in attitude) and swirl. Mother Earth, kneeling to the ground at the start, and rising up, bright-eyed, breaking into a life-giving dance.
Elaine Heng’s is a pure, sensuous, strong, nurturing Mother Earth, and her every move reminds you that there is no substitute for good technical execution, which brings joy into the heart of the viewer. May Yen Cheah bursts into dance with the electrifying vitality of Mother Nature; hips in a circle Lambarena-like, hand drawn up to the chin as if she is drinking from the spring of life — the glory and the light, startling the men into action after she leaves the stage. I write this review now (as opposed to majorly belatedly) solely for the purpose of bringing you these 2 paragraphs, before they exit the memory. Also because Passages was much shorter than the other SDT things for the year #excusesawordthatcannotberepeatedtwiceinahashtagasitlooksawkwardthen
When the curtain is pulled aside, we get the entrance of the emperor (Etienne Ferrere)…until he lies down and rolls over on the ground while the others watch (which makes him the … sacrifice?), before dashing off, so that we can launch into the Etienne Ferrere Show (in an absolutely positive sense). Good clean movements and single-hand flips, and the like. A charismatic spitfire solo. This must be the rite of passage spoken of in the booklet.
One of the best parts of Jabula follows: Yorozu Kensuke and Jason Carter join Etienne Ferrere, and become his supports for a variety of acrobatic moves, flipping him so he rises up in the air, holding him high above their heads — almost playground antics, but also tremendous displays of teamwork.
Two pas de deux that must not go unmentioned:
a) A brief show of trust and strength from Miura Takeaki and Yorozu Kensuke, e.g. rolling off one’s back, a quick balance on the other’s back etc.
b) Chihiro and Kenya. Not for the faint-hearted: a one-armed lift — his arm, holding her up by hers. I love how this segues into a group dance with the other pairs, with a great number of eye-popping, startling, sharp moves. Natalie Weir’s works always have quite stunning moments, and Jabula is chock-full of beautiful pair-work moments that have a beautiful freedom to them: ladies leaping up backwards, arms starburst-open, onto the outstretched impaling supporting arms of the gentlemen; ladies swinging up and leaping off the upper thighs of the men, arms open wide; ladies held by the waist as they bow (hands folded like dove’s wings, or fingers meeting in the centre in first) and then lift their heads. Staggered timing in the turns and twists and lifts make for an intriguing pattern onstage.
And, closing the performance, when all the pairs are looking down at the stage (ladies kneeling and men bent-kneed behind them), Chihiro and Kenya recreate that iconic moment that was seen in an earlier act, from all the pairs: Chihiro, kneeling on the ground, hooks her left arm into the crook of Kenya’s left arm, and swivels herself round on her knees, toes pointed to the sky, and stares up into his face yearningly.
*
You’ll see that a lot of the above description was more motion- rather than story-based. There’s a great deal to see.
Shoskatovich was a cheerful way to start the day/night. Timothy Harbour’s work was slick and sharp, Christina Chan’s felt quite intimate and personal, like a person standing in a circle of light and narrating a story, and Jabula was quite a feat.
For rewatching, I’d pick Another Energy and Jabula, I think. The latter for its rush of energy and shapes, and the former, just to better understand it. Because, looking back and comparing the pairwork for the two, I was struck by how very different the choreography and dancing were, and how well it fitted into whatever piece was being performed. You’d have the same folks, perhaps (Chihiro and Kenya) in a pas de deux, and it would be slick and nick for Another Energy; and it would be energetic and a little more direct in Jabula. And that made me long to watch Another Energy again, to see how the choreography worked with the music.
Or, “A good time was had”. With emphasis on the past tense.
From the 2 pieces I’ve seen of Christina Chan’s (this, and Traces We Left Behind), it seems that she takes a very personal, individual approach with the dancers. Each dancer is a human who leaves a trace on another, so there’s a shared intimacy, a bond between dancers. They interact with each other as people. The moves are always deliberate, planned, careful brushstrokes, like interlocking cogs: this marks that, which rotates the other, and we all fall apart. But for all its cautiousness on the technical side of movement, there’s also always some sort of underlying reflection on the humans.
The last major solo performance Reece Hudson had with SDT was at the SDT Choreographic Workshop 2016 in September, in a piece by Wing Liu, which ended with Ines Furuhashi-Huber and Nazer Salgado in a beautiful, touching movie-esque romance of a pas de deux together (French colonel in the rain with his mandolin). The centre portion of Wing Liu’s piece was Reece, as the last cyborg man, put together and abandoned by other man-machines. Spasming, twitching, staring out into the lonely emptiness, all accomplished without being overly-hammy.
That’s the sort of physical expressiveness and humour required for Unfound, a piece that allows dancers to ham it up even as it looks straight at you knowingly.
Lookit this couple, they’re so in love. They start the dance with their backs to us, wriggling and rocking to some inaudible beat. They quickly find another, collapse together in a heap, and every turn of her foot brushing his calf makes him roll over; every touch of his arm turns her. Bi Ru leans forward as far as she can go, like a human version of a cartoon parody of a setter dog, until Reece catches her hand and restrains her.
There’s a stunning control in their connection: clutching fists and squatting slowly together, and before their butts can touch the ground, rising up again slowly and then squatting again, and then rising back up again, all the while staring at each other through their mirrored sunglasses, in which they can really only probably see their own visage.
Can’t do without you, can’t live without you. My favourite of these interlocking moves is Bi Ru upside down, a long plank with her foot resting against Reece’s shoulder, when all that holds them together is the same clutched hand. Physics!
There are moments you wonder at their strength: Reece suspended horizontal to the ground, clinging to her right ankle, while she holds his leg so that he can remain in mid-air; Bi Ru clambering and squatting aboard his back to see the world together while he remains turtle-like, and slowly sinks to the ground.
So much fun, so much fun. Instagram-worthy moments of perfection: Bi Ru, seated in an invisible float (those famous unicorn or etc floats), raised high above his head as he trots around briefly while she jogs her legs in an invisible infinity pool; Reece on his back, legs-up as he watches TV or games or just stares out and away, while she rests on the stool created by his upturned feet. We love our time together.
We’re on holiday, I’m hailing a cab, hold me fast.
This is not the hardworking, long-suffering couple of Age of Innocence. Rave and roll with it, we’re so in love; embracing the other and jumping, knees up — a child-like, childish love.
Unexpectedly, the music switches to I started a joke, which started the whole world…. And now they are apart. Aren’t they at the same party still? They do move in synchrony, wriggling and bopping at the same time, and even scratching an itch with wriggling fingers at the same spot on their backs, but perhaps they no longer see each other. There are very faint echoes of old moves from before as they drift apart, Bi Ru seeing the world, or squatting slowly with an extended hand and no partner across from her to haul her back up.
There’s some rolling on the ground, but no longer together, and by the time they wake up, they’re on opposite ends of the stage, and we’re back to absolute quiet: and they push up their sunglasses: and Bi Ru, slowly turning, sees Reece, but he’s too busy looking out at us.
We’ve seen Bi Ru from early, energetic days in Blue Snow and in more recent days, with mobile expressive features in Gigi Gianti’s Bliss, so casting her in this was a fitting choice.
I bashed out the previous review just to get here before it was too late. Just felt it would be good to get as far as this pas de deux, because not many would have seen Reece Hudson at the Choreographic Workshop, as it was quite small, and I wanted to talk about how the way he dances translated successfully into a work like this.
The lovely part about contemporary works, as mentioned previously, is that in full-length classical works, we don’t always get to see everyone for a prolonged period of time, because those are usually about the principals. So I think it’s worth taking time to talk about various dancers.
By the way, I feel a little paiseh (embarrassed) when I read other people’s reviews. I just found one on BUTS. You can tell I am a newbie because other people are saying things about the dancers’ dancing that I obviously can’t see, and they have the language and knowledge of history and what a good Balanchine or Bournonville should look like. And/or, I will go for the good and better, and try not to publicly express any comparison or name names, or et cetera.
Onwards! This is SDT’s contemporary season.
That’s Jabula on the front.
1. Piano Concerto No. 2, Opus 102 – by Edmund Stripe
Seemingly simple, and it’s effective.
This is Shoskatovich, which I have been misspelling as Shostakovich. Someone is turning in his grave now.
Maughan Jemesen, who opened it previously (with her cut-glass sharp moves and quirky thrusts), has left. Chua Bi Ru steps in (a more rounded feel to the moves, and soft turning hands). The ever-reliable, cheerful Etienne Ferrere blazes in to take Zhao Jun’s role.
Honestly, I’d forgotten most of it, so it’s always a joy to rewatch. There are always new things to see.
The choreography knows how to make use of the music, and I’ve seen other choreography to this music online, but to me, this is the best application of moves to this piece. A rush of accents building up to climax sees the ladies and men separated, throwing arms open (as if pushing open doors welcomingly) and running towards each other, then the men hoisting the women aloft, the women forming great turning compasses. Quick swinging beats see the ladies, assisted by their partners, swinging their legs up like pendulums, then back via a sort of ronde (loose use of terms, please excuse) and leaning forward, their legs clocked high up back, and then a promenade. Men leaping to the back, women to the front, in little leaps in semi-splits that open finally into huge clean jetes. Dancers bent double, arms outstretched, quickly shifting their feet.
These moves look basic, but require so much energy and careful pacing, and they fit the music like hand in a glove. The music is never wasted: never do you hear a great loud roar in the music that is spent carelessly on a tiny, accentless move.
One of my favourite understated parts of this dance is how partners clasp hands. They look like they’re waltzing, and there’s a sense of comradery when hands are clasped so.
Uchida Chihiro and Beatrice Castenada share the soloist role of Tinkerbell. It’s great to see Beatrice in a solo role like this: quick, piercing steps and rapid turns round the stage, light on her feet. Chihiro’s Tinkerbell is fresh, bright, and she throws her arms up to make clear arcs so that her moves extend far beyond her frame — scattering fairy dust. It seems, sometimes, that the best dancers manage to stretch their presence far beyond themselves, to touch every corner of the stage.
The pas de deux between Li Jie and Nazer Salgado is the culmination of a massive amount of hard work. We’ve watched it, and the partnership, grow over time, and this is hardly the easiest pas de deux. Nazer is the ultimate hard worker: little lifts so Li Jie can make little running movements with her feet, or so that (while her arm is slung round his shoulders and her legs in a V-shape) he can turn round and round with her; huge soaring lifts as she extends her leg high up in the air; and after they make little sorties in the air with their soft arms, he turns his attention straight to her.
For the girl is the centre of the man’s universe in this dance, and he is hers, and Li Jie is gorgeous in this dance. Watch her feet, so quick and light and perfectly stretched, each step so finely enunciated. It reminds you of the saying that one must dance such that the viewer is unaware of the shoes.
This review of Shostakovich must close with a mention of Ines Furuhashi-Huber and Shan Del Vecchio. They’re a striking pair, evenly-matched. Shan Del Vecchio has danced in more roles recently (including Masterpiece in Motion, not reviewed yet). The development of dancers over time is always of interest; from walk-on roles in Sleeping Beauty to full-blown demi-soloist roles in contemporary dance. On that note, Shan Del Vecchio has got that elusive quality of charisma (not everyone can be so blessed), and he has talent and memorable form, and theirs is a dancing partnership that looks steady and comfortable.
2. Another Energy – Tim Harbour
This dance is really hard to describe. Partly because I failed to caffeinate myself before the afternoon performance (friends, do not underestimate the power of caffeine) and also because my vocab isn’t that extensive. Translating moves into words is hard for me.
Picture a giant white luminous oval on a screen as the backdrop. I loved the costume design: cosmic dark blue leotards (long tights for the men) with white whorls. At first, I imagined the dancers as moon worshippers, but that progressed into viewing them as atoms or just particles of energy, vibrating.
May Yen Cheah stands out in this dance. She’s very, very aware of how her body is to work and move; the embodiment of the body as an instrument, finely-tuned, with just the right amount of energy required. Nowhere is this more evident than here — when she jabs her hands sharply downwards at an angle, hands like steel-cut scalpels, or the bows of violins drawn to just the right angle; or when she throws her body, bowed inwards, into the air. She has a rapid pas de trois with Huo Liang and Yorozu Kensuke (bodies carving shapes in the air), and you realise that the dancers are moving so quickly that if their motions were translated into a sport, they would be essentially sprinting.
It’s interesting how, over time, dancers have moved up to demi-soloist etc, and you can see them taking the challenges and growing with them.
Nakamura Kenya and Chihiro have a pas de deux: magnetic hands drawn to each other and locked together; she lifted and turned round, clinging to his back, legs thrown up in a swallow-tail. A magnetic partnership as he turns her over and over like an electric unicycle wheel.
Jason Carter and Chihiro have another pas de deux. I like seeing how their hands work. You know the sort of classical pirouette where the lady has her hand above her head holding her partner’s hand, and he turns her round and round while their hands shift overhead to accommodate the rotation? The same principle seems to be applied when Chihiro rotates on a horizontal axis (so to speak), one foot on the ground, the other in the air, with only Jason’s hand as a support.
Interestingly, this dance ends with the dancers bobbing, ducking, bending knees, alternately facing us (I think) and each other, in perfect continuous rhythm, particles in constant motion, and then all goes black.
Two last things of note:
a) Glad to see Shi Yue Tony in a new, more prominent role. Like his form. He evidently takes the role seriously, and also seems to be enjoying himself. Good also, to see Kwok Min Yi in another contemporary role that makes good use of the quirky air she brings to such dances. Li Jie is in more contemporary dances this year than she has been, in maybe the last x years (bar Shostakovich), and I think that contemporary stretches a dancer in ways that we mayn’t realise; limbs are lent emphasis, motion becomes meaningful, and if you expected Li Jie’s contemporary dance style to be “classical moves in a contemporary dance”, interestingly, it’s not — it’s growing its own shape and voice. Huo Liang’s voice, for instance, is growing urgently audible, and there is a visible strength and energy in his kicks and jumps. His dancing is telling a story, it’s saying something, it has meaning.
b) The ending bows were excellently-plotted. The dancers as shifting, restless particles, slipping in and out and bowing, and separating out again into males and females before bowing. This was a pleasant little reminder of the ending of the dance, and the audience was amused.
I realise I said “More on that later” in the previous post and then I didn’t say anything more.
What I wanted to say was this: Chua Bi Ru danced a great deal in Passages, and sometimes there’s a sense that she was almost like a muse in parts of this. Or perhaps it is something of the spirit. She’s a spirited and expressive dancer, and is developing her own style. When one is passionate and expressive, there’s a danger of being almost too messy, but if and when all that is pulled in tightly, it can result in a really fine performance.
There’s a bit of Chua Bi Ru that’s like Rosa Park, the kind of verve and spark that lifts the immediate performers around her; or adds a slight edge to the performance. Witness Shimazaki Toru’s Blue Snow; or Napoli in Bournonville, for instance, where Bi Ru’s exuberance infects Zhao Jun in the opening tambourine piece.
And Bi Ru is also developing her own interesting shape and style in classical, neoclassical and contemporary dance. Another such dancer is Tanaka Nanase, who is unforgettable in, for instance, her solo piece in Val Caniparolli’s Chant (where the dance and dancer take on a kind of mystical form, even under the bright lights of the studio, and you can’t take your eyes off the dancer); and who was a sparkling Diamond in Sleeping Beauty.
And Uchida Chihiro, of course.
Okay, the idea behind Singapore Dance Theatre is that the dancers can all perform classical, neoclassical and contemporary works in the spirit of those works, and I have to say that that is entirely true (though there are also those who appear to excel particularly in one form or another).
But just off the top of the head, when thinking about it, Chihiro in particular is a stellar example of someone who has a very clear style that suits all three. In neoclassical and contemporary, she slips right into the rhythm and embodies the spirit of the piece. Look at her mincing away with chicken wing arms in Rubies (the lady in the shop); look at her in that yearning, delicate pas de deux in Blue Snow (set to music that is just pure vocalisation on the part of the singer – though some friends have heard Ma fille and others, my feet, my feet, my feeeeet).
A couple of friends have told me that they notice (and like) how Chihiro is exactly there at the end of every phrase of music, in the right pose (but without looking like a textbook study or like she’s just counting beats). She’s there on the spot, bam. Perhaps that is why her dancing has that clean poise to it. (I rely on friends to see this, I can’t actually see it for myself.) Off the top of the head, Maughan Jemesen and Elaine Heng are like that too – that sort of clean line and bam on the note.
There’s another kind of dancing, though – the kind that sort of seems to absorb the essence of the music and then spit out a shape. That’s not to say that the sort that ends correctly on the end of the note doesn’t do that. It does. That also doesn’t mean that the essence-absorbing sort doesn’t meet the notes correctly.
I mean that there sometimes seem to be moments when people are going by a particular feeling. Sometimes this results in a leg in the air that is not at the peak at the exact note (again pointed out by a musically-inclined friend, with a frown), yet appears to correctly express the feeling of grace and magic required. But such dancing may not always look messy. That’s the funny thing about it. Maybe I’m the kind of viewer that watches from that perspective as well, which is why I need other eyes to tell me about their observations.
When you watch Sticks and Stones by Kinsun Chan, in passing split-second moments, you might see that. Haha, managed to segue back to the point of this post. I paste the line-up again below, so you can see the names of the performers, and the meaning of this dance. Most the men in SDT at that time were in it.
The piece is supposed to be very masculine, almost in a tribal fashion. The props are quite interesting. The sticks appear to be metal rods that can be slotted back into heavy rod-holders on the ground. The stones are like those graphite-coloured, smooth stones people use to line driveways and koi ponds (?). I didn’t realise that until the lights came on at the end. I thought the chaps were really hitting the ground with the palms of their hands (ouch!).
The guys are shirtless and wear black pants and these contraptions that look like woven wires – some wear them round their torsos, some round their upper arms, and so on.
Things I remember: it opening with the men in a hunting group (using imagination) and one man (Huo Liang) as the spotter, hauling himself up on the backs of 2 folks to peer out to the back of the stage (Legolas, what do your elven eyes see? o_o). Perhaps they are spearing fish here. Perhaps they are taking part in a ritual, lining up and falling like dominoes.
Perhaps they are taking part in one of those initiation ceremonies, shows of their masculinity and bravado: they line up in a row at the back and wait as dancers take turns to perform. Here’s Kenya in a solo: clean, solid lines, as always; there go Reece Hudson and Shan del Vecchio leaping out of the shadows; here’s Shan del Vecchio again, with Stefaan Morrow, swift as flying fish, propelled into the air like high-jumpers. And you can’t have this kind of cast and not have Zhao Jun and Yorozu Kensuke soaring and spinning. It would be a waste.
The only music is a persistent drumbeat. If you lose a beat, isn’t it game over? (And yes. You can, if you are looking, see if/when there is a moment of “eh–oh“. But only one that I saw.)
If you cast your eye over the men in a group, generally, you see a great deal of smooth and slick lines following the beats. Which is interesting, because it’s tribal, but not exactly in the extreme raw, wild form. It’s quite structured. You can see from the write-up above that this is about dance and ritual, not chaos and Lord of the Flies. Everyone’s expressing that strong masculinity and the Power of Lines.
But then right at the back of the group in one part of the dance, there’s Chen Peng, dancing the exact same steps, but almost like he’s absorbed some of the energy and spirit of it and is spitting it back out. Is it because of form? Probably it’s also because different people dance differently. Which I think is what it is as well; Chen Peng’s non-classical dancing sometimes has a bit of a rounded look to it, almost like classical bearing carried over a bit. When you watch contemporary or neoclassical dancing, it sometimes looks like the planes of a palette knife in acrylic on a canvas (sometimes it’s ink painting, as in Passages 2014); and then there’s a smattering of oil painting. Haha, I am making up things as I go along. But maybe I do mean it.
Anyway, that is the kind of thing that crosses the mind of viewers as they watch the dance.
Those that are not sleeping. I have friends who do fall asleep during performances. Not my kind of thing, they tell me, I prefer classical. Suddenly I woke up, and it was over. I understand. Contemporary is not everyone’s cup of tea.
Okay, that’s it for now. I know I wanted to talk about Incandescent. Which blew my socks off. I’d like to see it again.
That’s a picture of Zhao Jun in 4Seasons. Singapore Dance Theatre had a voting competition – people could choose whether they preferred this cover, or another iconic-ish shot of 3 guys leaping, their backs partially to us, straight off to the right.
The other was fine enough, but I’m honestly glad this one won. It’s a great shot of a spectacular moment – it flies off the page and takes you with it. It’s like that weird saying about not turning your back on the audience. Awesome soaring shape.
Here’s the line-up:
I am going to jump straight to Bliss (by Gigi Gianti) first. It’s about getting rid of negativity. The dancers are dressed in white and embossed patterned gold cloth.
Things I took away from it:
1. How it starts. No music – dancers as creeping, crawling thoughts snaking their way across the stage slowly. Then when the music strikes, they fall into jagged shapes: hit an arm to break its line of motion – slap a knee to snap it into action. Chua Bi Ru is the luminous centre. More on that later. There’s quite a bit of choreographed freestyling in the dance – Shan del Vecchio stands out quite a bit.
2. Everyone moving to their own rhythm, perhaps struggling in their own murky world, and Elaine standing still, just one hand raised high to count: one, two, three. As if getting ready to drive the mind down a different path. Count to three, and we’ll snap out of this horror.
3. One of my favourite parts of Bliss: a trio of Nazer Salgado, Stefaan Morrow and Bi Ru, performing what looks almost like a ritual to drive out evil (in my mind, seeing as that’s the theme). I think it’s set to really gorgeous music too (gamelan?). Each pause and pose is resolute in the face of the world. Nazer swinging Bi Ru over to stand on his thighs to gaze out at the world; then the trio entwined to form one strong totem, Bi Ru’s face staring out starkly. It ends with Nazer holding Bi Ru by the waist and retreating backwards as Bi Ru kicks out squarely at Stefaan, who strides towards them, but bent low, as if he’s almost defeated. An evil- cleansing ritual; out, out.
4. Chen Peng and May Yen Cheah walking out together peacefully as a blissful couple; and the others as the gossips and the whispers crowding them out, staring and pointing and casting doubt. (I’m cheating a bit, was informed that the others were supposed to be doubts. Okay.) I like the unexpected part where Chen Peng goes to one corner and stands with knees bent and pointing out so his legs are in a diamond shape, and May Yen Chean suddenly slides herself between his calves so she’s suspended solely by the strength of his calves, and she makes a sort of star-shape with her limbs. Like a mermaid. It’s beautiful. You can see it above, as performed by Timothy Coleman and Heidi Zolker.
But it seems that May Yen Cheah goes to the gossips after that and enters the crowd – but then everything melds into a new scene.
5. Another of my favourite parts is a delicious pas de deux between Nazer Salgado and Elaine Heng – a loving couple in an energetic, athletic piece. There’s chemistry and contortion, and when they accomplish it perfectly, you can sense their exhilaration. It’s one of the parts of Bliss that really stands out in my memory. It’s such a short little duet, but there’s something so perfect about how it’s choreographed and how it all hangs together.
6. Nakahama Akira, May Yen Cheah and Yatsushiro Marina in a triangle (the first at the front) – light and nifty steps. Perhaps drawing closer to happiness – one of those moments when everything seems to be working well, at last, and one thinks one is out of the woods. (Disclaimer: Viewer’s imagination.)
7. Probably the part that maybe borders so much more on the contemporary that my mindspace ran out of tape: when a voice over speaks of a female protagonist (“she”) who struggles and struggles, but it’s so hard – and then she finds “bliss. Yes, bliss”. I didn’t get this when I first saw it outside Passages, because it seemed to be given on a plate. But during the actual Passages performance, it occurred to me that perhaps one was supposed to really listen to the words and let them sweep one away to a dark place, and then tug one back out.
8. After that, the group breaks out of all it structured struggles – perhaps a sign that the tension is broken (no more choreographed freestyling!) and true bliss is in freedom – and everyone pushes their way to the front, chattering excitedly in various languages. At first, I found this really odd (perhaps this viewer is not very used to contemporary works). Later, I found it quite enjoyable since it seemed to be meant to be so: relaxed, and such.
9. Yatsushiro Marina has her own little solo piece(s). I think of it as wandering amidst stardust, trying to find one’s way out. I’m happy to see her have her own part; somehow there’s a little bit of fragility (even in strength when struggling against the night, do not go softly) in these parts of the dance, and she brings that out.
And at the end, she picks herself out of the crowd and drifts to the centre. Then she claps her hands, and a cloud of chalk explodes as the lights go out. Like a burst of hope, in the darkness.
Okay, that’s all for now, folks.
I said Hurray in the last post. I forgot to say Hurray for updated individual photographs for some of the artists. On that note, whilst spring-cleaning, I found the brochures for the 2006 (?) Nutcracker and 2011 (!) Ballet Under the Stars (where I was sick so I left halfway). So bizarre!
balletbelatedetcetera 