InfiniteBody: China

It shouldn't be too difficult to write a headline. But this one--pretty generic, eh?--took longer than usual to come together. That reflects a larger quandary about how to write about the show that Shanghai-born Yin Yue presented at Peridance Capezio Center this past weekend.

Her New York-based Yin Yue Dance Company's own abstract, contemporary pieces alternated with festive delicacies--brief ballet ensembles and Chinese classical and folk dances choreographed by Ying Yin and Zhou Dan and performed by students from China's Jiangxi Zhongshan Dance School. This curious coin kept flipping.

First, it would be all bright, cheery colors and unflagging smiles from China; precision-crafted fantasias--a bevy of young women in pink pointe shoes, tassels, spangles, the works--that would have inspired Busby Berkeley. Then lights would dim again, and out would come one or more of the Yue crew, dressed dark and drab, launching one of the choreographer's typically stretchy, gnarly, bulletproof assaults on space. The mood-swinging went back-and-forth like this for roughly 90 minutes. What to make of it all?

I cannot claim insight into the conventions of dance in China--insight that might have been more available to some of my fellow viewers--but I'd say that Yue would serve her Chinese colleagues and their New York audience better by producing a separate showcase for their artistry and providing, in program notes or a spoken introduction, a little background on the school and each of the dances presented.

Her own quartet--herself, Grace Whitworth, Luke Bermingham and Liane Aung--can be terrific. I can't say I "get" the enigmatic choreography or have a sense of what drives Yue as a maker, what matters to her beyond the forcefulness of her movement. But the sculptural, nearly industrial movement looks sharp, clean, purposeful. It has spring and tensile strength and cuts air like nobody's business. All of her dancers have lithe, compact but athletic bodies similar to hers, with Whitworth being particularly grounded, surefooted and--you can clearly see--mentally focused. Bermingham excels in this way, too, in the solo One Step Before The Exit. Duets are occasions for exacting puzzles in the handling of one partner by the other; ensembles bring rhythmic retractions and ricochets--all thrilling, mysterious assertions in space that, in all honesty, I craved after each injection of sunshine and sugar from the Chinese students.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Legos @Large: works by Ai Weiwei at Alcatraz

Art Man of Alcatraz
Ai Weiwei Takes His Work to a Prison
by Jori Finkel, The New York Times, September 18, 2014

Friday, August 22, 2014

Documentary sheds llght on the lives of Tibetans in China

Inspiring Dialogue, Not Dissent, in China
'Nowhere to Call Home' Examines Prejudices
by Ian Johnson, The New York Times, August 20, 2014

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Novelists Edward P. Jones and Yiyun Li read at 92Y, April

92Y

welcomes novelists

Edward P. Jones and Yiyun Li

Thursday, April 10, 8:15 pm

Edward P. Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for The Known World. “It’s difficult to think of a contemporary novel that rivals its sweep, its humanity, the unvarnished perfection of its prose and its ultimately crushing power,” wrote Dave Eggers.

Yiyun Li’s new novel is Kinder Than Solitude. “Li is extraordinary, a storyteller of the first order,” wrote Junot Díaz. She “inhabits the lives of her characters with such force and compassion that one cannot help but marvel at her remarkable talents.”

Ticket information

92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan
(map/direction)

Sunday, February 16, 2014

NYU to host panel on contemporary dance in China, February 18

Building a Movement:

A Conversation on Contemporary Dance in China

panel discussion

at NYU Tisch School of the Arts

February 18, 6-7:30pm

Contemporary dance in China, its history and evolution, its relationship to traditional Chinese dance, and its current role in Chinese society

Panelists:

Patricia Beaman, Dance History, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
Tao Ye, Artistic Director, Choreographer and Founder of TAO Dance Theater
Alison M. Friedman, Founder and Creative Director, Ping Pong Productions
Aly Rose, Producer and Choreographer
Xiaoxiao Wang, Dance MFA Candidate, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
Stephen Xue, Company Manager, Shen Wei Dance Arts
Hou Ying, Choreographer / Artistic Director, Hou Ying Dance Theater

Free and open to public with required RSVP to skirball.education@nyu.edu

NYU Tisch School of the Arts (Dean's Conference Room, 12th Floor)
721 Broadway (between Waverly Place and Washington Place, south of 8th Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Also of interest:

In New York, a Showcase for Chinese Performers
by Rachel Lee Harris, The New York Times, February 14, 2014