Ballet + Chinese Opera Movements with Gin Dance Company
You can read the full review and see photos for the DC Dance Journalism Project here. I really enjoyed getting to learn more about Chinese opera movements while researching this piece. Below describes Gin Dance Company’s premiere of “Breaking News",” one of three pieces performed.
Gin Dance Company’s Unveil, presented the first weekend of the Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival, explored storytelling, perspective, and connection. Founder and artistic director Shu-Chen Cuff's background in ballet, modern, jazz, Chinese folk dance, and Chinese opera movements blend together to create Gin Dance Company’s unique East-meets-West style.
The premiere of “Breaking News” utilized the exaggerated storytelling techniques of Chinese opera movements to show the same story from multiple perspectives: four women involved in a shooting, a news anchor, and the two investigating police officers. The simple set, a park bench and a desk, allowed the dancers to create the environment through pantomime and dance. The anchor, danced by Cuff, began by plucking ideas out of the air, rearranging them, and fervently writing. Synthesizing her sources, she re-enacted the shooting, conveying a remarkable amount of information with only her hands and face.
The two policewomen embodied the Chinese opera movement principle of opposition, one moving her entire body all the way to the left in order to look to the right, the other rising all the way up on her tippy toes before crouching down to examine the ground, an enormous magnifying glass pressed to her eye. Chinese opera typically includes exaggerated pedestrian movements (there are 20 distinct beard movements alone) meant to communicate specific pieces of information to the audience. While there are more than 360 regional opera forms, they share the same three basic principles: balance, energy, and opposition and require a minimum of fifteen years of rigorous training.
Between numbers, Cuff discussed her vision for the Rashomon-like piece: “You may think the story unfolds one way and the person next to you thinks it is completely different -- that’s the beauty of art. We are each telling our own story and each finding our own meaning.”
Check out the rest of my review and see photos here! Reading the rest will help us continue to cover local dance (our funders love seeing clicks and readership <3)
Photos by Michele Egan
Dancer: Shu-Chen Cuff