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Songs Of Th e Wanderers, Th e Quietness Th at Touches MalaysiansA spiritual performance by Cloudgate Dance Theatre offers audiences tranquillity in the midst of the chaos of life.TEXT: RICHARD CHUA PHOTOGRAPHS: YU HUI-HUNG I

t is worth the effort to refl ect upon quietness in this world of chaos and noise, in which politics makes the loudest sound. In this country, especially when everybody is fi ghting for attention,

in all its myriad colours, the timely arrival of world renowned Taiwanese dance Cloudgate Dance Theatre to Malaysia might be able to inject some quietness and refl ection to balance out the noise and chaos.

Songs of the Wanderers was created in 1995 after artistic director Lin Hwai Min’s sojourn to Bodhgaya (where Buddha attained enlightenment under a Bodhi tree), India. A classic in Chinese contemporary dance, the presentation in Malaysia is in its full splendour: a monk standing under the hail of golden grains; dancers as “wanderers” shaping rice grains into hills, rivers and crop circles. All of them climbing, cavorting, splashing, and praying to the fi re god. Rather than idolise the company, local audiences and dancers alike might want to refl ect upon the quietness brought about by it.

The performance was mesmerising. The juxtaposition of raw emotions in motion gave the dance piece the necessary texture of ups and downs in the theatre-watching experience.

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spiritual peacefulness and quietness, fl owing from one bank in life to another.

Perhaps, the monk in the dance piece could give us an idea or two about quietness and serenity too. Performed by Taiwanese artist Wang Rong-Yu, the role of the monk standing under the cascading rice grains not only demands physical endurance, especially having to maintain the posture for two hours, it also provides the audience a spiritual destination. It is like the image of Siddartha, where his enlightenment in the state of nirvana has allowed him to observe what’s happening in life, realising that life is in fact, emptiness.

All of us are wanderers in life. As we search for the ultimate destination, are we be able to reach the state the dancers in Lin Hwai Min’s Songs of the Wanderers achieved, where the fi nal destination is just like the Buddhist mandala, a refl ection of life and spiritual strength?

Perhaps Taiwanese cultural critic and academician Jiang Xun could assist us in getting started on this journey. In his words (translated from Mandarin into English), “As my friends reached middle-age, they would recall having studied Songs of the Wanderers. It would be like walking out the second time, walking out from noise, walking out from angst, walking out from love and hate, walking from contortions towards peace and compassion. The journey of the wanderers starts with the realisation of one’s own personal restrictions, where life and death are not just items we are fearful of, but also of them being inevitable which haunts us.”

The journey towards peace and tranquility starts with ourselves. Judging from the applause and the standing ovation in response to the performance, Malaysian audiences have indeed commenced on this spiritual journey. JD

All these did not come about in a short period of time. After all, Cloudgate Dance Theatre, named after a 5000-years-old, already-extinct dance form, is already 39 years old. Founder Lin Hwai Min has been training his dancers in Chinese opera movement, martial arts, meditation, Tai-Chi and recently, calligraphy. These Chinese cultural elements are appropriated to work with foreign musical compositions and theatrical elements to create a universal language of humanity. To Lin Hwai Min, humanity seems to be about contemplating life, albeit quietly.

Loosely based on Herman Hesse’s interpretation of Siddhartha’s quest for enlightenment, Lin Hwai Min created the piece with 3.5 tonnes of saffron yellow rice grains, under the backdrop of soulful sounds of the Rustavi Choir. The quietness and serenity Lin Hwai Min was aiming for is like the quiet fl ow of a river, the quiet tilling of farmlands, the quiet meditation for rain. His experiences in India is referenced here. The life he has come to realise -- on his trips to India -- is one that encourages him to seize the present moment, and to take life in its entirety, where all good and bad are in fact a facet of one big entity called life. Life and death co-exist together. There isn’t a difference.

Lin Hwai Min’s realisation gave him strength to pursue the state of quietness in this world. In creating Songs of the Wanderers, he harnessed the sense of creative freedom derived from the above philosophy. The present became his creative impulse. In doing so, he is able to live freely and happily, not having to worry about creating the “best dance work”.

For many of us, to create or achieve something seems to be the single most important objective in life. But we never realise that life is just an illusion. Having this insight, we would be able to create meaningful artworks. Lin Hwai Min has done just that with Songs of the Wanderers: the rice grains become rivers, giving juxtaposition between the fl ow of time and the fl ow of river waters; dancers treading on the grains and cleansing themselves; people praying for spiritual strength – all are representations of one’s search for

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The basic tenet of creativity is revolution. It is about the spirit to wanting to make a change. In theatre, in a very modernist sense, it is about breaking the rules of

creation. Nyoba Kan Artistic Director Lee Swee Keong and co-director Woon Fook Sen’s Butterfl y Loversis one such attempt in revolting against the grain of popular music catering to mass audiences. The one-and-a-half-hour-long production fi lled with music performed on Asian and Western instruments not only gave audiences a fresh new perspective to eclectic sounds from instruments from two continents.

With only one dancer on stage, the production gave music and body ample space to create an audio painting on the plain white stage. Nyoba Kan Lee Swee Keong’s abandonment of Western and Asian hegemonies of cultural specifi city has come to light.

Little has been written about Lee Swee Keong’s body in the Malaysian theatre scene, it seems. Trained in the Japanese dance form butoh and

A Revolutionary Attempt Nyoba Kan’s re-staging of the tragic love story brings renewal to the Malaysian arts scene.TEXT: RICHARD CHUA PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF NYOBA KAN

body-conditioning yoga and other dance forms, Swee Keong has attained a body dexterity that seems to exhibit the natural fl ow of body movements. Everyone of us is natural, you might say, but there are habits which we have picked up that makes our body “un-natural”. For one, posture problems are common with urban dwellers. Strictly speaking, and especially to a butoh dancer, he would not want to be called a dancer. My defi nition of a dancer here does not refer to any form that adheres to a specifi c dance form. The stereotypical impression of a dancer in society is what I meant – dancers who can leap and jump, hands waving gracefully in the air, the list goes on. However, many non-dancers don’t realise that dancers receive long periods of training in order to do the expected antics. As much the word “antics” might not be suitable, it is this consumerist attitude that diminishes the strength and power of movements of the natural body, not to mention ballet, modern and contemporary dances, butoh even. Swee Keong truly encompasses

This Page: Lee Swee Keong’s representation of the Chinese evil.Opposite Page (From Top): Butterfl ies as metaphor for freedom; bloodbath as poetry; the demise of the fi nal resolution.

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a body in motion in its natural state, its ability to reach almost every single gesture of the everyday.

The musical pieces in Butterfl y Lovers became the landscape for the body to move freely. The rising chords of Wong Chee Wei’s piano, coupled with the staccato-layered melody of Lim Leong Hon’s violin provided the platform for Ngooi Perng Fei’s Chinese fl ute. The upward cascading notes of the fl ute truly pushed the energy of the fi rst few scenes to its emotional height, allowing sentimentality to sink in. The energy was greatly needed for the sombre scenes that followed.

The highlight perhaps was Gideon Alubakan’s rendition of a meditative soundscape performed on the traditional Chinese string instrument Gu Qin. In Chinese music, the beauty of the Gu Qin lies in its ability to leave audio resonance in any theatre space. Alubakan managed to moderate the (sounds that are produced through the depressing of fi ngers on the strings) in a way to fl ow with the body movements of the actor on stage. This was especially so when one of the musicians asked to cleanse a deceased body on stage.

While different musical elements coming together in a performance (if done properly) might make a beautiful score, it might not be exciting for an attempt to discover new possibilities of Asian and Western music. The strings of a violin, with the piano, and the percussion all seemed to fl ow well with each other, but the fl ute seemed to stand out. Like birds that fl y out of a forest canopy, the fl ute was a source of surprise for the theatrical presentation. Every time it entered the musical soundscape, the musical spirit was instantly lifted.

What was exciting for me is the way the signature sounds of the Gu Qin’s (sounds of the moving hand) related to the overall music score. As much as Wong Chee Wei’s Philip Glass-like repetitive chords gave the rest of the musicians an opportunity to layer the sounds within the score, it seemed that only Alubakan’s sound left the theatrical moment in the space. It resonated with the story of two star-crossed lovers in this popular Chinese literary classic. However, much to be desired is a dancer’s body moving within the signature Gu Qin’s sounds of (Slipping Tones) and (Whispering Tones). The spaces within the soundscape of the Gu Qin would allow a dancer’s body more space to excavate the emotions within the Chinese classic.

In conclusion, the aesthetics of the Chinese theatre has been redefi ned in this piece. Butterfl y Lovers is truly a breakthrough in the defi nition of Chinese aesthetics in the Malaysian-Chinese performing arts landscape. As a truly eclectic theatrical experience that transcended the confi nes of Asian culture, Butterfl y Lovers is neither Asian nor Western. It is exquisite theatre at its best. JD

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In many of my encounters with overseas Chinese – I am, for one, a Singaporean-Chinese – I have been constantly asked this question, “Do you think we should still stick to our Chinese roots?”

Culturally, it is meaningless for overseas Chinese to lay claims on Chinese-ness in a “China” sense. Spiritually there is a need to hold on the aesthetics and the way of life of a Chinese body. For me, a Chinese body is what I have. It comes with the cultural upbringing, spiritual nurturing, and aesthetical formation. None of that is related to China.

Hence my gripe towards Han Fong Dance Troupe’s direction in presenting Chinese dances with an aim to evoke rhapsodies over Chinese poetry. I feel there is a problem when overseas-Chinese bodies perform Chinese dance of a specifi c cultural construct, i.e. the “China” way.

This artistic direction will only result in nostalgia and sentimentality – a certain kind of longing for the specifi c Chinese cultural construct. This not only perpetuates a single kind of Chinese nostalgia, it is also an impediment to Chinese creativity in dance being brought to another brand new level – a creativity of an overseas-Chinese sense, unique and anchored in the roots of the Malaysian-Chinese culture.

Hence, besides appreciating the carps swimming in the rivers of Jiang Nan, how would this dance piece contribute to the understanding of the Chinese

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Chinese Or Overseas Chinese? RICHARD CHUA follows Han Fong Dance Troupe’s tracing of the Chinese soul in the evocative Poetic Rhapsody. PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF HAN FONG DANCE TROUPE

aesthetics in the fl ow and motion of fi shes, on the lines and curves of their swimming paths? Would the use of the remnant sounds in the Chinese musical instrument Gu Qin contribute to audience members’ capacity to see the fi shes in action? From the rather disorganised group dance segments in the choreography, it seems that this Chinese essence has not been given much thought.

Similarly, in Ripples, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts graduate Jansen Goi does not seem to have held on to the energies emanating from the concentric circular motions of ripples in the river. The rather limited creative philosophy (shown at the beginning of the dance piece) clearly highlighted this limitation. The water in the gutters dropping into a puddle of water is – to say the least – un-poetic. As much as he is a rather adroit performer in presenting the fi ner details of ripples, there is really nothing much to observe beyond the fact that it was just different forms of ripples in a pool of water. The dancer also did not give his full in the dance piece. He was

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hesitant in executing his routines in many segments in the choreography.

Longing was perhaps one of the more interesting pieces in the evening’s repertoire. The 80s-inspired Chinese karaoke music and television-style of Chinese singing made the struggle of the protagonists more poignant and effective. What I specifi cally liked about the dance was its ability to tone-switch, in an instant, from sadness to the pursuit of happiness in Chinese-ness. The attempt at pursuing happiness was a successful one, for the 80s-inspired music brought back nostalgia of growing up during those times. The waking up scene, likened to the experience Du Li Niang of The Peony Pavilion, seemed apt, for the protagonist’s attempt in reclaiming her own sentiments was – to say the very least – heart-wrenching.

The second half of the dance performance refl ected the different perspectives of the Chinese bodies in the cultural construct. In Bound Feet, the feminist trope of suffering women in feudal times was apparent. Chinese music was played in epic style, highlighting the oppression women have experienced during those times. The use of the red sash was also apt, riveting in its execution. Also successfully done was the nostalgic renditions of the music used in Hong Kong director Zhang Wan Ting’s The Soong Dynasty. It brought about the grandeur of the Chinese court dance-like effect, typically reminiscent of courtly music.

Shadow play was also put to good use in Home. It had the potential of opening up a new interpretation and aesthetics in the South-east Asian Chinese dance. It was more effective than the multimedia projection of the Chinese ink spreading thin in water in the piece Dark Plum Blossoms. The Chinese aesthetics of ink was fully explored here. Unfortunately, it was done too excessively with dancers doing their own routines, independent from the moment the Chinese ink was attempting to build-up.

As the evening progressed, audiences were being brought back to their roots in exploring the beauty of nature. In Retreat at Xu Inn and Songs of the Wanderers, the choreographers’ attempt to bring the warmth and love of living in nature and maternal love in its basic essence was mildly effective. The over-use of Chinese elements in these dances seemed to be the contributing factor to the stasis. However, Chinese aesthetics was interpreted to its best in The Spirits’ Lament.

The worst of the lot in the evening’s performance was perhaps Florid Sleeves. The Shakespearean-inspired Romeo and Juliet-like drama of a young couple in love teetered on becoming a lesbian love affair. Jansen Goi – in his attempt to showcase his dance techniques – was not able to fully embody the

masculinity required in the dance piece. With a slightly better female co-dancer (Claire Lai) dancing alongside him, his aura of femininity seemed to get a better side of him, resulting in great choreography imbalance.

In conclusion, I would like to revisit the question that has prompted my refl ection on the probable culture of overseas Chinese. Would there be a truly overseas Chinese sensibility without another culture? The answer has yet to be discovered. However, with the spirit of Chinese creativity strong within the Malaysian-Chinese community, there will be new discoveries. The spirit of Chinese creativity that was inherent in Justin Wong’s choreography for Court Ladies – exploring the endless possibilities of re-interpreting the Chinese woman – should be preserved for future Chinese dance practitioners. JD

This Page: Preservation of Chinese-ness Opposite Page: Feminine struggles