Enrico D. Wey presents new solo at Danspace Project

Enrico D. Wey performs his new solo,
to warring states, a useless tool,
at Danspace Project.
(photos: Elyssa Goodman)

In his third Danspace commission, Enrico D. Wey presents a deeply personal examination of Asian male identity and embodiment. Wey explores clichés such as the Asian body as a fetishized and invisible minority, asking, “Can I reclaim my own physical body from the gaze of others and from my own embedded prejudice?”

--from promotion for Enrico D. Wey's to warring states, a useless tool

At first sight, the set-up of Enrico D. Wey's solo at Danspace Project--to warring states, a useless tool--first resembles an improvised boxing ring. Audience seating lines all four sides of a large, square space covered in a white, illuminated plastic mat, its parameters neatly defined by festive, tricolored tape. A pink ribbon, anchored in the air by cords extending from the sanctuary's columns, encloses this area like the ropes of a boxing ring.

We enter, claiming chairs or cushions, to find Wey already stationed at the square's center, standing as still as a rubber doll, his long, black hair completely veiling his face, his chest, legs and feet bare. Oksana Meister's costume--largely front and back panels of multicolored fringe--wraps his lower body from waist to knees. Although the set suggests a competitive match of some sort, the costume introduces a different association--cultural ritual. As we will see, both associations are fair entry into the work.

The solo moves through an hour--most of that time, astonishingly glacial in pace. It takes a while at first, and close observation, to even detect change in Wey's body. But, yes, those arms are slowly rising and spreading. That might not register until the positional change becomes obvious. Fifteen minutes, at least, have passed before the arms find an arch like half-unfurled wings. As if to (sort of) highlight the moment, Elliott Jenetopulos's lighting gives the tiniest, fleeting uptick that seems almost like a hastily-corrected mistake.

Wey's arms begin a descent, his head and back dipping forward, folding downward at the same pace. A half-hour has passed, and he is suspended above the floor, nearby shadows tinted strawberry and green. Abruptly bursting into motion, he rapidly pumps, thrashes up and down, over and over, sharply exhaling, panting, snorting, shifting from one to all four directions. About forty-five minutes in, there's humming, sudden panting, something that sounds like yodeling, scatting, muttered gibberish and then ritual chant. Never, though, the revelation of his face. We're not granted that. The lashing motion blurs whatever we might have been able to see. He is there and not there. Or there in some form of absence that removes his actual identity from easy access. Forced or deliberate. Negative or positive. Make of that what you will. Make of him what you will.

In the post-show Q&A with writer Jaime Shearn Coan, the Taiwan-born performer spoke of sourcing material from traditions ranging across several Asian cultures--including, in his furious, ecstatic lashing, an aboriginal tribal dance of Taiwan performed solely by women. He was driven by a need to put himself at the center "and always at the center," embodying what appears to be stuckness but, as he sees it, is truly "activated space."

"I'm going to place that at the center of my work and see what spins out from it," he said. "That gray space in between, I want to be able to sit in that space and take from it."

Multitalented Wey has also worked in puppetry where, he noted "the idea is to make the puppet breathe" thus changing the nature of the puppet's movement and the audience's perception and understanding. The dancer in to warring states inhabits a space between inertness and dynamism, between being acted upon and acting, between being object and subject. He might be oppressively obscured or protectively hidden. He might be invisible or visible and apprehended and known in multiple ways. The states war. He is a vessel, useless or otherwise, in this adroit and fascinating performance.

to warring states, a useless tool continues tonight and tomorrow with performances at 8pm. Seating is limited. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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International Dance Day 2013: Message from Lin Hwai-min

Lin Hwai-min (photo ©LIU Chen-hsiang)

It is said in the Great Preface of "The Book of Songs,"

an anthology of Chinese poems dating from the 10th to the 7th century BC:

"The emotions are stirred and take form in words.

If words are not enough, we speak in sighs.

If sighs are not enough, we sing them.

If singing is not enough, then unconsciously

our hands dance them and our feet tap them."

Dance is a powerful expression. 

It speaks to earth and heaven.

It speaks of our joy, our fear and our wishes.

Dance speaks of the intangible, yet reveals the state of mind of a person and 

the temperaments and characters of a people.

Like many cultures in the world, the indigenous people in Taiwan dance in circle. 

Their ancestors believed that evils would be kept out of the circle. 

With hands linked, they share the warmth of each other and move in communal pulses. 

Dance brings people together. 

And dance happens at the vanishing point.

Movements disappear as they occur. 

Dance exists only in that fleeting instant. 

It is precious. It is a metaphor of life itself.

In this digital age, images of movements take millions of forms. 

They are fascinating.

But, they can never replace dance because images do not breathe. 

Dance is a celebration of life.

Come, turn off your television, switch off your computer, and come to dance. 

Express yourself through that divine and dignified instrument, which is our body.

Come to dance and join people in the waves of pulses. 

Seize that precious and fleeting moment.

Come to celebrate life with dance.

Lin Hwai-min,
Artistic Director, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan and Cloud Gate 2

The International Theatre Institute (ITI) is pleased to announce that the celebration of International Dance Day 2013 will take place Monday April 29th, 2013 at Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris, starting at 8 pm. The Taiwanese choregrapher Lin Hwai-min, author of this year's message, and his company Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taïwan are the guests of the 2013 edition of International Dance Day. They will perform extracts from their works at the occasion. In 1982 the Dance Committee of the ITI founded International Dance Day to be celebrated every year on 29 April, anniversary of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), the creator of modern ballet. The intention of the International Dance Day Message is to celebrate Dance, to revel in the universality of this art form, to cross all political, cultural and ethnic barriers and bring people together with a common language – Dance.

Every year, a prominent choregrapher and/or dancer is selected to write a message about Dance and its importance in our societies. Translated in more than twenty languages, the message is circulated through the ITI network (more than 90 national Centres and cooperating members) and performing arts organizations, starting from April. Time magazine talks of Lin Hwai-min as one of "Asia's heroes". Founder of the companies  Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taïwan and Cloud Gate 2, the choregrapher's work has been internationaly acclaimed.

Cloud Gate 2 debuts in New York

Taiwan's Cloud Gate 2 takes pains to clarify its identity: not Cloud Gate Junior, not Cloud Gate Lite. Although also led by Lin Hwai-Min, who founded and directs the famed Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, Cloud Gate 2 tackles the work of Taiwan's young innovators. The New York stop on its international tour--The Joyce Theater now through Sunday--features five works by four compatriots. While these are not brand new pieces--the most recent ones premiered in 2009--they serve as a good introduction to this strong, striking troupe.

Huang Yi's Wicked Fish (2009) had me from hello and, I'll admit, spoiled me for what came after in this roughly two-hour evening. A more seamless, perfect marriage of movement and dancers--let alone dancers and lighting--I cannot imagine. With nothing hokey, obvious or the least bit tentative, Huang and lighting designer Lee Chien-chang evoke a deep sea world of darkness and sudden, mysterious illumination, of increasingly swift, fluent motion. The ensemble--thirteen dancers including Huang--exhibits potent technique, guts and believability. This work leaves me astonished, once again, at how the human body can transform to make art, how the energy of the body can transform to make magic(k).

Huang Yi's whimsical Ta-Ta For Now, set to a Khachaturian violin concerto, opens with the image of a guy tying his shoelaces and pedaling his floating feet like an astronaut in free fall. I really want to see what follows here--a quintet of dancers perched and rhythmically, goofily interacting across a row of folding chairs--back-to-back with Camille A. Brown's The Groove to Nobody's Business, although Huang serves up his own clever, cutesy groove. He's a confident artist, an audacious one, and I want to see more of what he's got up his sleeve.

Tantalus (2000), by the late Wu Kuo-chu, turns its eight dancers into what appears to be a tribe of meerkats with a serious case of the twitchees and an inclination towards slapstick. The Passage (2000), a lusciously surreal sextet by Bulareyaung Pagarlava, plays with dreamily, effortlessly shifting costumes and simulated nudity. As with Cheng Tsung-lung's The Wall (2009), which appears stuffed with and distended by every movement idea that the choreographer could imagine, lengthiness quickly diminishes virtue. Both pieces, however, make the ensemble look fantastic--and vice versa.

Cloud Gate 2 appears again at the The Joyce on Friday night at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm and 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

The Joyce Theater
Eight Avenue and 19th Street, Manhattan
(directions)

Ballet Tech's Mandance Project

Click here for my Dance Magazine review of Mandance Project at The Joyce Theater.