Highlighting two cultures, China and Canada, and two fantastic dance companies, Wen Wei Dance and The Beijing Modern Dance Company, Under the Skin brings dancers from Canada and China to explore the questions of personal identity, culture, and gender roles. Through the invigorating and abstract movements of dance, the powerful and expressive dancers reveal that it is human experience that unites us all.
“The basic context of what we love, what we hate, what we need, what we want- those are all the same. We have two different colors, the West and East, but under the skin we are the same.” – Wen Wei Wang
Performing at the Theatre Junction Grand, “Calgary’s culture house for contemporary live arts,” I was drawn to the distinctive body of contemporary dance, requiring no storyline, and engaging the senses through sound and dance. I did know what to expect, but at the end of the night, I left completely enthralled.
Wen Wei Dance work’s earns a reputation of reflecting startling performances of the social experiences, and our underlying social, cultural, and personal development. With a highly individualist style, the artistic director, Wen Wei Wang, fuses precise choreography and provocative and amazing visual design and music to make for a unique creation.
The Beijing Modern Dance Company is a leader of professional modern dance in China, integrating the dazzling traditional culture of China and global influences. Gao Yanjinzi, the artistic director and one of the founding members of the Beijing Modern Dance company, and her innovations are influenced by her Buddhist upbringing, with her dancers moving with a harmonious flow of energy, yet abrupt surprises push audiences to question what really is “traditional or modern.”
The first dance act, Journey to East, revolved around the theme of water, be it a running stream, a massive hurricane, being submerged underwater, or the dripping plips from a faucet, Journey to the East captured the full range of emotion and movement in relation to the underlying theme. Surprisingly, behind a transparent but beautifully painted scenery of a Chinese landscape of mountains in bold calligraphy, stood dancers, “mirror images” of the visible dancers on stage, garbed in heavy cream cloth, and danced in a contrastive tribal manner.
Donning darkly colored apparel, the onstage dancers movements possessing a certain flow of natural energy in each of their steps. The dancers embodied the amazing cycle of nature, as each dancer pushed their bodies to incredible limits and beyond. One memorable moment for me was when dancers swirled in such eclectic force that astonishingly one could witness the transformation of a hurricane emerging and possessing in their movements. Simply put, a hurricane was using the bodies of the dancers as a channel to release it’s fury, perfectly harmonized to the rumbling gust and whistle before a storm. Another was the quick and upstart jumps reflecting almost flailing fish out of water, in rhythm to the sounds of forceful submergence into the sea.
The second dance act, In Transition, amazingly fused western and eastern contemporary dance, coupled with an electrifying body of music, to a original and interesting video presentation. The video presentation was quite disturbing and arbitrary. All the dancers were stretching and warming up their muscles on the stage with no particular interest given to any other dancer gathered around them or the bizarre video filming behind them. The video quickly flashes an between progressive exchange of scenes depicting a placid duck to a butcher cutting into piece a whole barbecued duck into edible pieces. The video progressed to fill the screen with a continuous flow of a Chinese crowd, presumably walking in a underground subway station of some sorts, to twisting arms and fingers, forming the unmistakable Buddhist sign of peace, “Ohm,” their middle fingers encircled to touch their thumbs, and to faces that regularly disappeared and reappeared, from and into pitch blackness, the five or so smiling and sombre faces behind the enrapturing dancers.
Electricity sparking the background, the dancers vividly danced with incredible flexibility and strength, though with no storyline, there were many telling moments. As a mob of dancers rapidly run around the stage, their frenzied movements electrifying and provocative, solo dancers stood out from the mob of dancers. The dancer’s fused a Western contemporary style with that of a Eastern martial arts energy. Most memorably, shouting quick Mandarin Chinese words and numbers, ( there was a count to three when the dancers proceeded to elevate a dancer onto the arms of two others, to create a mighty tower) the solo dancer in his individualistic rhythm, and was dressed in a causal grey sweater and sweats opposed to the street styled dancers, was being pushed and prodded, entrapped in a encircling mob.
Delightfully, the choreographers of Wen Wei Dance and the Beijing Modern Dance Company, Wen Wei Wang and Gao Yanjinzi, and several of the dancers were able to speak afterward, providing the answers to the nestled and burning curiosity of the audience members. Prevalently, the audience questioned how dancers were able to adapt or come over the language barrier that came with the collaboration of Canadian and Chinese dancers and their roots. The dancers chuckled as they admitted that a translator was always present to explain the direction of each choreographer, but as they spent more time bonding with one another (such as playing UNO!), progressively through the language of their united interest in dance, the intangible acts of understanding bridged their communication.
All in all, Under the Skin, was a delightful, incredible and simply astounding. This arts movement explores the dichotomy of Eastern and Western culture and personal identity, the fundamental depths of humanity expressed to make this a heart stopping show, be sure to visit and watch Theatre Junction Grand’s next performance, young or old!