There was nothing much in the line-up of Esplanade's Hua Yi Festival (华艺节) that I really wanted to watch except for one Cantonese play. Bought the tickets the moment it went on sale. Oof. But since the friends were in town, I randomly picked a show that they were watching in order to hang out with them longer.
Taiwan's drumming performance group U-Theatre's 'Beyond Time', 優人神鼓的《時間之外》was visually arresting. Drumming and martial arts, and meditation made up a contemplative dance on the relationship humans have with Time. Dressed in flowing robes, the performers pretty much looked like meditative monks of an unknown monastic order. The movements drew inspiration from religious dances all over the world, say whirling dervishes.
The problem with watching a lot of shows by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and U-Theatre- one begins to detect similarities in the performances. It seems hard for these dance companies to break out of the safe conventional mould that they know audiences are all right with. Like this one, 'Beyond Time'. The dancers were okay. The drumming was cool. The video projection was sorta expected. Nothing blew my mind.
If you start thinking about time travel and its paradoxes, it's cool to start grinning in the darkened hall. I was also thinking about gravitational waves and black holes. Is Time a loop or simply linear? Where does religion take us? Is immortality a possibility?
Taiwan's drumming performance group U-Theatre's 'Beyond Time', 優人神鼓的《時間之外》was visually arresting. Drumming and martial arts, and meditation made up a contemplative dance on the relationship humans have with Time. Dressed in flowing robes, the performers pretty much looked like meditative monks of an unknown monastic order. The movements drew inspiration from religious dances all over the world, say whirling dervishes.
The problem with watching a lot of shows by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and U-Theatre- one begins to detect similarities in the performances. It seems hard for these dance companies to break out of the safe conventional mould that they know audiences are all right with. Like this one, 'Beyond Time'. The dancers were okay. The drumming was cool. The video projection was sorta expected. Nothing blew my mind.
If you start thinking about time travel and its paradoxes, it's cool to start grinning in the darkened hall. I was also thinking about gravitational waves and black holes. Is Time a loop or simply linear? Where does religion take us? Is immortality a possibility?
2 comments:
there's this one cantonese play at huayi that i really want to watch too. we're probably talking about the same one. sigh.... but i can't believe it's STILL so hard for us to go for stuffs like that nowadays, as we have to now take into consideration the little one's early bedtime when there's school the next day, the old one's tight travelling schedule, and other commitments with family and friends. we have had to miss 2 other programmes at esplanade that we were interested in since we came back. this looks like another that we will miss. back for 8 months and we've not succeeded in going for even 1 show at esplanade that we are keen on... :(
God of Carnage? :( Haizzzz. Those tickets sold out so fast.
It is tough balancing everyone's schedules and commitments. Hope the dates will work out for you to at least catch one in the coming months?
Post a Comment