Dance: Moves to whet the appetite

Some pieces grabbed the eye, others stayed a cipher. Nonetheless, a recent showcase offering exciting new works made for a night of good memories, writes SUBHADRA DEVAN

IT’S an interesting change to watch a varied contemporary dance showcase like Jamu 2008 rather than a 180-minute (with interval) performance by a single artiste.

One particularly memorable piece performed at the National Arts, Culture and Heritage Academy (Aswara) last Saturday night was a dance called Sum.

Choreographed by Umesh Shetty, this piece saw three kathak peformers dancing to the beats of the tabla by Prakash Kandasamy and drums pounded by Leow Sze Yee and Thong Yoong How of Hands Percussion Unit.

Using a score by well-known Pandit Briju Maharaj (master of kathak), sitarist Kumar Karthigesu and bass guitarist Chen Tsun Wei — seated on an elevated stage that was wheeled in — lent harmony to the thrases sung.

There was no story to decipher unlike most of the other dances. Sum offered rhythm.

Umesh says he was playing around with form and movement using kathak as the base. Kathak, which means to tell a story, came from the dance dramas performed in royal courts. The dance today is one of movement. It suits contemporary dance which has no boundaries.

“I was exploring the different wavelengths — which we don’t see — in space. Where can one turn lead to after the first beat? That first beat is god. The others are like the gopis (followers).”

Sum, for Umesh, is the return of form and movement to god, “back to that first beat”.

I found it theatrical, dramatic and musical.

Part of Sum had been performed in Angkor Wat in February, and from what was presented at Jamu 2008, it must have been astounding in that setting — for it was rivetting in Aswara’s small experimental stage.

A piece that demanded attention was Random by Joseph Gonzales, the Aswara dance faculty dean.

The audience had to choose three items to be performed out of six. Offering the choices were transvestites, which got the crowd giggling.

It was an interesting experiment to show the randomness of life, to quote the writeup in the event booklet.

As the pieces were performed by a large ensemble, four male dancers consistently performed traditional Malay dances like joget, until they too seemed to lose their focus and struggled to carry on.

Just as we all sometimes do in life.

For Gonzales, Random was meant to showcase the many things artistes do for a performance.

“When people see a show, they don’t understand what the artistes go through. I tried to create a piece that looks at what goes on rehearsals, in their lives,” even if it was for only 10 minutes.

He says the choices the artiste makes lies not in his or her hands. As for the use of transvestites, Gonzales points out that “many backstage people in the arts are transvestites” even if we seem to choose not to acknowledge this facet of our society.

I found Xin Dong by Wong Kit Yaw profound and fascinating.

Using the music of Tibetan chants, red threads bound the dancers on stage and they unravelled these karmic bonds to reach harmony of self.

A huge paper bell, with what looked like mantra sheets on it, was raised from the floor to reveal two dancers — male and female — inside. The ensemble wove this message of finding truth with their hands as they sat around the bell. The action was centred on the two under the bell who danced and swung the bell in larger circles reaching a crescendo. Then all was still.

When asked about this dance, Wong said: “All suffering leads back to the original place, represented by the bell.”

The Jamu 2008 series started with 7 Puteri. A lone dancer, Norbaizurah Abdul Ghani, moving sometimes in tandem with the video images highlighted in the backdrop.

She was flexible, energetic and clean in most of the movements. There were strong silat moves contrasted against gentle flowing gestures.

The showcase ended with Steve Goh’s Unforgettable. I think the dance was about love.

Using “live” rain trapped in a square on stage, Goh danced sinuously with the water. The element itself became movements within the dance.

A female dancer rushed in, and thrashed around the space. He watched patiently. And finally she collapses or dies in his arms.

I feel Goh should have added coloured lights to make the splashed arcs more theatrical. But there was high-tension drama in Unforgettable.

Of the eight pieces presented that evening, dancers who stood out included Suhaila Micheline Ahmad Kamil in her own choreographed piece called 2=1.

The piece told of either the challenge of life or its monotony. What remains in the mind at the end of the piece was Suhaila’s flexibility and understanding of her body for modern dance in the opening segment. And the quirky outfits she and her troupe donned.

Many of the performers for Jamu 2008 are either students of Aswara or lecturers at the academy.

I found it a good showcase of new and exploratory work, as promised by Gonzales, the artistic director and producer of Jamu 2008. It left me excited as the future of contemporary dance in Malaysia looks rather bright.