Asia Dance Channel

We’re Gonna Go Dancing

19-20 August 2009

Experimental Theatre, ASWARA

By Nicole Ng

As I was ushered by the very welcoming Miss Oshima to the seats, I picked a seat on the first row because I wanted to catch the full glimpse of the dance.

They lights dimmed and the graceful Maki Morishita in a silver and tangerine knee-length dress walked out. I remember watching her every move; it was filled with intensity, strength and precision. In the middle of her dance, she suddenly approached the microphone which was placed earlier on the stage, and told us her name. She even repeated her name in a set of dance moves, which attracted much laughter. Every sentence she spoke was followed by a set of interesting dance moves, which really lifted the atmosphere. Audiences were chuckling away while responding to her attentively. She was really a crowd-puller.

“It was a fast solo piece to introduce myself, therefore the name Debutante which also means presentation. I created this dance six years ago, and have performed it in seven cities including Kuala Lumpur,” Morishita explained.

After Maki Morishita bid the audience goodbye in a very graceful manner, the stage was back to pitch black once again. In the dark, I see shadows dancing. When the lights were indistinctly switched on again, the blur shadow turned into a handsome young lad wearing nothing more than just a boxer. I recall vividly that his dance was dynamic, full of action and emotions, and focused.

According to Ikuyo Kuroda who choreographed the piece entitled Last Pie, he had to repeat the dance five times, and each dance takes up approximately ten minutes. It was no wonder that, in the middle of this piece, the dancer was already soaked in his own sweat. The Aswara dancers entered the stage a while later, running, and screaming whilst dancing. The dance portrayed a repetitive routine; an unavoidable routine. Its background music, to my surprise, was sung live by the very talented Jiro Matsumoto.

Last Pie was inspired by the theme “Life”, explained Kuroda. “You can only move forward in life. When you were born, you were, you cannot choose not to be. So if you cannot stand it anymore, just dance!” What an extraordinary way of thinking about life, my interpretation is that if you are tired of your current life, just move forward!

After the intermission, I returned with more anticipation for Returnee by Masanori Hoshika, and Headache by P’Lush.

In Returnee, the stage was set very simply with a Japanese war chess set placed at the left upper corner of the stage. Hoshika took small steps animatedly, and wore his shirt with the neck opening hanging onto his head like a head scarf, leaving only his face to be seen. The music he used was distinctively unique, because it was a mixture of radio broadcasting on war news, and music regarding wars.

His inspiration was obviously, “war” and he purposed this dance to encourage the “anti-war” sentiment. Hoshika was not only a person with vivid imagination but also an actionist, because he managed to turn virtual motions into reality when incorporated them into his dance.

In the last piece, Headache, three girls wearing sleeveless hot pink quilted vest with fur hood paired with hot pink shorts, appeared on the stage in a playful manner. They reminded me of young active girls with dreams and ambitions. With the fast beat songs and the bright colours that they used, the dance stages’ mood was immediately elated. My eyes were following their every movement, my lip was naturally smiling because of the intoxicating songs and colours, and my head was nodding to the beats. Suddenly, there were cabbages thrown onto the stage, and the three dancers began to thrust the cabbages into their white tanks. After their tops were literally stuffed, they jumped and moved to let the cabbages out. They repeated these steps a number of times, which led me to wonder about the reason behind these acts.

Later, I found out that the cabbage represents something which human beings tend to rely on, and the cabbage became so important in ones’ life that it has transformed into a baggage. The concept behind the dance, according to the choreographer and director, Masako Fukaya, is to look for something new in self, and the struggle to get out of a current situation.

The performance left me thinking during my journey home - it was then that I realized dance can be a powerful tool to transform your thoughts into art!