Danced Paintings: The Rite of Spring/Folding
Lori Ortiz
Several large
gestural abstractions on canvas hang in the lobby of the LaGuardia concert hall.
The calligraphic action paintings were created — and danced — by Shen-Wei
with a wide brush in his studio, to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The black
strokes are almost calligraphic notations of the movement of his body and brush.
The lyrical circular gestures brushed across the canvas suggest the mood and
structure of the music. The rhythmic pattern of the sound inspired Shen more
than did the pagan ritual Stravinsky envisioned for the ballet.
As if constricted
by the size of the canvas meant to hang on the wall, Shen goes to dance. He tapes
white lines on the floor and paints with a white translucent talc-like substance,
perhaps spread with a soft push broom over the gray dance floor. The dancers
punctuate the space — an exploded picture plane — running along the
taped lines, taking stilted steps in small circles. Movements are broken down
into measures, like turns taken one quarter at a time. Dancers follow the mathematical
progression of the music. Rites takes on dimension, it is fleshed out, even alluding
(however loosely) to the ballet’s story.
In the 1913
libretto, Stravinsky contrasts modern mass man of the new mechanical age with
the savage primitive. In Shen’s version, one tribe moves with earthy fluidly
and the other mechanically. But influenced, they change course and take on the
opposite mode. The bodies seem magnetized, soulless, without will; faces are
expressionless. If there is a “Chosen One” (sacrificed to please the
gods of spring in the original story), she is played by more than one dancer.
Fazil Say plays
live on disklavier, two of the four hands for The Rite of Spring. With the second
piano programmed into the instrument, he achieves tremendous, larger than life
volume and richness. The split company dances the color of one part and
the brutal rhythm of the other. Say’s dramatic performance adds sturm and
drung with its intensity; the dancers embody the ritual beat with their quietly
passionate movement.
Folding is
a 1995 dance with a 15th century feel. Editor Kung Chi-Shing artfully mixes John
Tavener’s music and a Tibetan Buddhist chant. The dancers first walk in
quick stiff multidirectional steps. They wear elongated caps, beige with white
painted stripes and very long red skirts that drag behind them. With tight flesh
colored bodice for the women and bare, hairless chests for the men.
A rendition of
an 18th century watercolor by Ba Dan San Ren is the backdrop painted by Shen.
It is aquatic green with just a few small black fish and red signature stamps.
The dancers stark costumes and movements create the scene. Faces and bodies are
whitened; they reach one white arm cutting the green like periscopes navigating.
Shen trained in the Chinese Opera and imports its slow, stately ambience, painted
scenery, spare movements, and symbolic gestures into Folding.
Statuesque
dancers are carried above as if on pedestals or palanquins.
