Movement has long pervaded Indian thought. Dance here is a vivid element in religion, mythology, philosophy and art. Although I have spent over 35 years following dance in the West, a four-week visit to India in February made me feel that only now have I witnessed dance where it is truly central to culture.
“You’ve been there?” friends said in envy after Wednesday’s Nrityagram Dance Ensemble performance. Yes, I’ve seen Nrityagram in India, at its home village near Bangalore and in Chennai — and yet the New York audience is in no way shortchanged. These are among the world’s greatest dancers; on Wednesday they gave as complete and fulfilling a vision of their art as any I have seen anywhere.
In India, ancient temples teem with sculptures of dancing figures, testifying to the spiritual origins and importance of dance. To see a performance of a classical Indian dance in such a setting must be revelatory, an experience impossible for an Indian dance troupe to reproduce for North American audiences.
Tanya Tagaq stands alone on a stage, a small red rug beneath her bare feet. She gently rubs her belly, as if coaxing up the air she will soon need to push out a parade of spirit voices: some pitiful, others hectoring, one apparently a demonic presence that transforms Tagaq into something snaky and cruel.
Throat-singer Tanya Tagaq could be Canada’s unlikeliest crossover act. At a time when Canada is reckoning with the historic mistreatment of its indigenous population, her new LP demands retribution.
Tanya Tagaq looks as if she's having an out-of-body experience onstage. Her voice flickers like a sonic candle, rising and fading with the music. It becomes guttural as Tagaq drops to her knees, and she chitters high and desperate as she flutters her hands about her face. She sings no discernible words — it's as if she were speaking in tongues.
The program moved backward in time, with newer pieces performed at the beginning. First came William Forsythe's "One Flat Thing, Reproduced," a riveting piece involving a stage filled with metal tables.
Formosa is a more reflective look at the Taiwan of today. The Chinese title literally translates as ‘About the Island’, which pretty much sums it up. In part, it’s a celebration of the open, multicultural society that Taiwan now is, but it also reflects the mixed-up feelings of today as moments of harmony rub up against moments of conflict. Sometimes there’s a sense of frustration, sometimes of hope.
“When I started the company. I wanted to create something of our own,” Lin said. “I never thought that we would tour around the world.” In the ’70s, Cloud Gate was the only professional dance company in Taiwan — the first contemporary dance company in any Chinese-speaking country. With a prolific career including more than 90 works, Lin developed his own choreographic style, blending Western dance with Eastern ontology.
Their performance delivered absolutely top-notch music-making, as fine as one could ever expect to hear. In works of Beethoven, Turina, and Tchaikovsky, the group made a forceful statement, with loads of personality and nearly perfect technical finish.
