Review-Asia Pacific Dance Platform-Hong Kong Arts Festival
8-3-15
By: Lynn Gong
Asia Pacific Dance Platform VII consists of two pieces. It began with Hyoseung Ye’s short autobiographical solo Traces in which he negotiated with his dancer’s body. After 10 minutes’ break, the set design was changed for 2 Men, in which Chen Wu-kang and Su Wei-chia wrestled with the boundary of their 17 year friendship was presented. Both pieces are very personal and heartfelt expressions through movement. I was electrified at one moment, laughed and smiled at another and had a very enjoyable night. I would recommend these two pieces as well worth checking out.
Traces
The set and props of Traces were extremely simple. A microphone dangling from the ceiling and a paper bag with a sandwich and a bottle of water inside it. That is all. Hyoseung Ye’s body, however, was able to narrate powerful emotions. But do not expect to see smooth or “beautiful” dance moves because Hyosueng Ye’s power lies in being everything different from the normal or the comfortable.
If dancers show effortless control of their bodies on stage, Hyoseung Ye’s dance transplants dancers’ offstage struggles onstage to tell you how hard dancers' work can be and how hard life can be. He was squatting at the centre of the stage, gobbling food and throwing up in his shirt. The difficulty is further presented in his attempt to wake up his body. Through calculated control of every inch of his muscles and face, Hyoseung Ye was very successful in depicting an almost overwhelming, unsettling state of the uncontrollable and the uncomfortable.
The strongest moments were when he was kneeling down. Lowering his head, he only showed the neck and his naked upper body. According to the rhythm of the music Cripple and the starfish, his scapulae were contracting and expanding like a party trick. Transformed into various shapes, his upper body looked completely alien but was breathing and agonizing like a human.
Even though I am not sure if everybody can enjoy a bit of poetic abnormality, I myself found Hyoseung Ye’s dance to be a very sensual, intense and heart wrenching performance.
2 Men
Directed by Edward Lam, 2 Men incorporates dramatic monologues, dance and prepared piano into a well-structured whole.
At the beginning the monologues recounted the two dancers and their relationships. In these monologues, Chen Wu-kang declaimed Su Wei-chia’s scripts and vice versa, adding a little twist to their intimate relationship that sometimes made it confounding as to who was who. My warning is that the Mandarin monologues and a small sequence of Cantonese voiceover are not translated into English. Non-Chinese speakers would not be able to get the humor when others are laughing.
Their choreographed dance borrows a lot from contact improvisation, meaning that they generally keep a physical point of contact while moving freely on stage. As they chased, avoided or embraced each other, the duo’s neat and graceful interaction formed the show’s most memorable sequences. Some parts of it were quite soothing and subtle, reminiscent of the famous dancing scene in Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together (1997). It was also refreshing to see Su Wei-chia’s pirouette during their contact improvisation section. Especially in this piece dealing with male relationships, Wei-chia’s pirouette keyed in to complicated issues of bromance and male-female dichotomy. However, for me, the later part of the dance tended to be too predictable and not exciting enough.
I was surprising to learn in the Q&A session later that the pianist Lee Shin-yang was improvising the whole time except in the beginning and the end. Using the prepared piano device, his music generally complemented the dance neatly. However, there were some minor distracting noises as he was placing objects on or between strings.
Overall, 2 Men is a delightful, energetic piece. It is reflective in probing male relationships but would definitely not give you a headache.
Asia Pacific Dance Platform plays through March 8th. For more information, click here.
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