Monday, March 04, 2013

Silk Road at Lincoln Center


Photo credit: Deccan Chronicle

I love Japan for its modern pop culture, but when it comes to ancient traditions and art, I'm actually a bigger fan of China. Traditional Chinese art forms are just indescribably beautiful, and while governments and political systems come and go, the Chinese have never lost their connection to their classical arts.

The world saw some of that in 2008 during the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies directed by Zhang Yimou (the film director responsible for modern classics like Hero and House of Flying Daggers, among many others). I didn't realize it at the time but one of the featured dance routines at the ceremonies that year was taken from a modern classical production called Silk Road, about a father and daughter whose lives are changed forever by people they meet along the ancient trade route during the Tang dynasty.

Apparently it was during rehearsals for this segment that featured solo dancer Liu Yan fell and became paralyzed - a really sad story that I think about whenever anyone mentions these Olympics.  (If you're looking for an update about her - as I was after seeing this show - there's not much followup in the media but she does have a blog and Twitter-like Weibo account, and it looks like she's moving forward with her life. She is still paralyzed, though.)


This year, the Gansu Dance Theatre troupe - who apparently originated this show in 1979 - brought Silk Road to Lincoln Center for four shows only. My wife and I went last Saturday night. It was actually the Playbill that pointed out the appearance at the Olympics, or I'd probably have never made the connection. The dancer now playing the role of Yingniang is named Chen Chen (pictured above and at the top), and she was amazing.

The choreography she had to do was one thing, but honestly the thing that had the audience gasping was during the curtain call, when all the featured dancers did a little "kata"  (I don't know the Chinese word for this, but same concept). Hers involved lying on her stomach, raising her legs behind her head and performing an overhead vertical split (so her body was already bent 180 degrees), then rotating her legs - still in a full split - all the way around to the other side.  If you can't picture this, it's because it shouldn't be physically possible!  It looked like something that should instantly break a person's back and tear every ligament and muscle in their body, leaving them just a puddle of Jell-o.  But she did it, and really gracefully too I might add.


We sat in seats AA5-7 on the "Second Ring" of the David H. Koch theater, which are great seats if you can get them. Everybody always wants to sit in the orchestra section, but all you can see there are the dancers in front! From the second ring, you can see the entire stage, and on the side you're both closer than most people in the orchestra, and this particular section has only one row, which faces the stage. That means everybody has both a front row balcony seat and aisle access. I feel like I'm giving away a secret I'll regret later, but these seats are probably the best in the house. Did I mention they're also cheap?


Excuse my blurry-cam pics, but they told us no photos so every shot I got was kind of a slash and dash. This is the theater from our seats before the show. If you open up the full size, despite the blurriness you can see the same section on the other side and how it's laid out. The first ring directly below is probably also good, but there are two seats side by side so a) you need to be with somebody (I was), and b) one person's not going to have an unobstructed view.

Chinese classical dance is tangentially related to ballet (honestly I am not an expert; I am reporting what it looks like to me), but it's slower and more concerned with holding very precise, very difficult positions and with slow and elegant movements that make impossible body contortions look effortless. I am not a ballet person - I think it's very boring - but I can watch a Chinese classical dancer all day long. It is absolutely mesmerizing. It is one of the most beautiful things in the world.


Chen Chen again. This is also from the Deccan Chronicle. Convince yourself that she's actually standing in that photo, not jumping. Because she is standing, in that position. Try that yourself.


Here's the curtain call. I didn't take my own pics during the performance because seriously, it is not just against the rules but also incredibly rude. It's just not cool.

They did also come out to the orchestra area during the curtain call - this is the best shot I got:


I was kind of surprised there was not really a standing ovation, but it may be cultural - 90% of the crowd was actually Chinese. Man, I wish more Americans would come out for stuff like this - they don't know what they're missing! The Americans that were in the audience (other than me) were most of the ones standing up and being most vocal. The lead dancers did get a lot of hoots and hollers.

It is pretty cool to be able to see something like this direct from China itself. This was totally authentic; the real deal. And while the plot of the story itself is basically pure propaganda (it shows how China befriended the world through the Silk Road), in some ways that's almost part of the charm of it. It is unabashedly pro-China, as you'd expect something direct from China to be. It's like watching an American dance interpretation of Red Dawn if you were in China. This story and dance is how China defines itself.

(Note that there is something called the "Silk Road Dance Company" - I have no idea what that is. This is the Gansu Dance Theatre; they are not related.)

Next month we're going to see Shen Yun, another classical Chinese dance production, though one that seems to have been made for westerners by ex-pats (Silk Road was originally made for Chinese audiences). Apparently it's a bigger production, but we'll see how it compares in authenticity. I'm looking forward to it either way.

I couldn't find a video of Silk Road anywhere, so I'll leave you with the next best thing - the echo dance from House of Flying Daggers. There's a scene in Silk Road that seems like it probably inspired this scene in the movie, and of course my wife and I had to watch it again as soon as we got home. Zhang Ziyi was a classical dancer before she was an actress, and she uses those skills here:


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About This Blog

This is increasingly not a blog about Alphabet City, New York. I used to live in the East Village and work on Avenue B, but I no longer do. Why don't I change the name if I'm writing about Japan and video games and guitars? Because New Yorkers are well-rounded people with varied interests, and mine have gone increasingly off the rails over the years. And I don't feel like changing the name. I do still write about New York City sometimes.

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