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REVIEW: Shen Wei Dance Arts
Published: 2/10/2010 6:20 PM
Last Modified: 2/10/2010 6:20 PM


A scene from Shen Wei's "Re- (Part I)."

The Chinese-born choreographer Shen Wei created his most recent work, a triptych of dance pieces grouped together under the title "Re-," in response to journeys he made to three Asian countries: Tibet, Cambodia and China.

Tulsans got their first chance to see Wei's work, when his company Shen Wei Dance Arts, presented two sections of "Re-" in a performance Tuesday night at the Tulsa PAC.

What the 300 or so people in attendance saw was "Re- (Part I)," the Tibet-inspired work, and "Re- (Part III)," the China piece.

Both were technically impressive if emotionally chilly examples of dance theater – movement that was innovative, unusual, maybe even unique, that evoked complex concepts and hinted at profound ideas, but only that. These two works entertained the brain without ever once stirring the soul.

Granted, not every artist is concerned with eliciting an emotional response from his or her audience; to be intellectually challenging is ambition enough.

Wei's work certainly is that. It takes some work to get into, especially "Re- (Part I)," which for much of its performance was like listening to someone recite poetry in an unknown language.

You can tell it's poetry by the cadence, the rhythm of the language, and you can appreciate the beauty of the sound of the individual words, the music that comes from those words being linked together.

But to understand the meaning of what's being said, to take away something more than a sense of abstract beauty, isn't possible.

"Re- (Part I)" begins with the dancers seated around the edge of a large, yet simplified mandala – the intricate sand paintings Tibetan monks will take days to create then destroy in minutes.

One female dancer faces the audience and begins moving in a kind of slow motion; the tightly controlled, yet fluid writhing she does makes one think of a person receiving blows, or reacting as bullets strike flesh.

More dancers begin to move – more or less in keeping with the chants voiced by Ani Choying Dolma – and they stir up the carefully arranged confetti on the floor, blurring the pattern.

Wei's choreography is very grounded – in fact, it's the antithesis of a great deal of dance that seeks in some way to defy gravity. The dancers are almost continually in contact with the ground as they move, as unison passages devolve into isolated, and isolating, solos.

You keep waiting for it to coalesce into something, and it never does. And maybe that is the point – that this is a dance that speaks to the isolation of Tibet, to the mutability of its identity to the West.

On the other hand, the idea that are at work in "Re- (Part III)" are a bit more accessible, more sharply presented.

The first section is built around the dancers moving in regimented, synchronized groups, usually six steps forward, four steps back. Couples link into arcs that collapse, individuals within the robotically marching ensembles bounce around like peas inside a snare drum (except for one passage where the individual is in step and all those around her are in panicky chaos).

Then a long and very slow solo by a female dance leads to the rest of the cast returning, having shed their loose green smocks and pants for mottled tops with black shorts and boots. The music changes to crunching industrial chords, the background project morphs from a vaguely bucolic seascape to dull metallic skyscrapers, and the one dancer still in green weaves her slow, writhing way through the frenzied whirling and tumbling of the others.

Here, you get the idea of the clash between the pastoral and urban, the past and the present, the desire for and the terror that can arise from unity. It's certainly one sort of response to time spent in Chinese, moving from the modern city of Beijing and out on the Old Silk Road.

And while this again was a piece that seems aimed only at the head, at least the aim of "Re- (Part III)" was true.




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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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