Search

Find us on  Facebook 

 

Opening of the festival New Baltic Dance'17: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre

12th of May 6 PM, Lithuanina National Drama Theatre, Main Hall

White Water
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (Taiwan)


Concept and choreography: Lin Hwai-min
Music: Erik Satie, Albert Roussel, Ahmet Adnan Saygun, Maurice Ohana, Jacques Ibert
Costume design: MA Ke
Lighting design: Lulu W. L. LEE
Videographer: CHANG Hao-jan (Howell)
Projection design: Ethan WANG Based on video images by CHANG Hao-jan (Howell)
Co-productions: National Performing Arts Center – National Theatre & Concert Hall, Taiwan, R.O.C., Movimentos Festwochen der Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany

Premiere: 2014

Set to the piano scores by Erik Satie and other composers, White Water is a lyrical dance of pure movement that flows beautifully as its title suggests. The curtain opens to a projected colour image of a flowing river; it slowly transforms into black and white. In serenity and in turbulence, whiteness of waves and ripples streams out of the blackness. Green netting and girds used for digital design interrupt the flow of water, thus revealing the process of creating virtual images and illusion of light, providing a pleasant surprise to the dance.


Against the constantly evolving projection, dancers in white swirl and jump in various mesmerising sections of solos, duets and group dances; their arms wavy, tails of their skirts flapping, echoing the surging of white water. From time to time their bodies are fragmented by the projected green lines, adding mysterious aura in this otherwise bright and charming work.


Towards the end, as dancers reverse the choreography of the first section, the projection dissolves into the initial image of a river in black and white, and then recovers its original colours. Shinning in great simplicity, White Water is a gem among Lin Hwai-min's choreographic works.

 

***

 

Dust
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (Taiwan)



Concept and choreography: Lin Hwai-min
Music: String Quartet No. 8, Op. 110 in C minor by Dmitri D. Shostakovich
Costume design: MA Ke
Lighting design: Lulu W. L. LEE
Projection design: Ethan WANG
Co-productions: National Performing Arts Center – National Theatre & Concert Hall, Taiwan, R.O.C., Movimentos Festwochen der Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany

Premiere: 2014
                                            
In July 1960, Dmitri Shostakovich travelled to Dresden to compose music for a film about the Bombing of Dresden. Fifteen years after the war, this East German city remained a site of the horrific destruction. He wrote the String Quartet No. 8 in C minor in three days. Confiding to a close friend, Shostakovich said: “When I die, it’s hardly likely anyone will write a quartet dedicated to my memory. So I decided to write it myself”.

Lin Hwai-min was electrified by the intense sadness of the music when he first listened to this best-known piece among Shostakovich’s complete string quartets in the 1990s. Frustrated by the political suppressions, massacres and genocides of the 21st century, Lin decided to choreograph to the quartet, and told Cloud Gate dancers that it would be a requiem. While researching on the literature of the music, he was absolutely shocked to learn that Shostakovich did intend to write it as a requiem.

Calling the work Dust, Lin seems to lament that in the face of cruelty, human beings are fragile and insignificant like drifting dust. Smoke whirls in the air. Dancers clad in black and dark brown costumes, stagger and crawl, making brief appearances out of the smoke in the dim lighting. Against projection of desolate images of strong colours, they collapse and struggle to stand up. Once and again, they cluster in lines and groups for protection, only to be broken down. Towards the end, they hang themselves in a standing position, with their mouths opening and closing like fishes out of water. Smoke slowly swallows them up.

While White Water flows like a movable celebration of life, Dust cries out from the darkest of the night, evoking memory of Goya's Black Paintings. Premiered in 2014, two of Lin Hwai-min’s latest creations make up a powerful double bill with great contrast in styles and contents.


More information: www.newbalticdance.lt