Photo: Stephanie Berger

I was expecting a dance performance when I attended U Theatre's The Sound of Ocean at BAM last October. Instead the movement component was the least of it. The hard-to-define Ocean (Is it dance? Is it music? Is it ritual?) creates an evening-length evocation of water through traditional Chinese percussion, theatrically presented. And although the performance became a little bombastic (and long) toward the end, overall I found it magical. The visual and movement elements began to feel stale, but the sound never did.

The Taiwanese U Theatre is a performance collective that lives and works rather like a monastic sect. Its members adhere to the belief that combining “Tao” (or self-improvement) and artistic skill is the goal of life and of artistic creation. To that end U Theatre members' rigorous training includes daily practice of tai-chi, martial arts, drum techniques, and, most importantly, meditation in order to achieve “strict body discipline and total freedom of the mind.” Drum master Wong Chee-Mun, who composed Ocean, has been instructing company members in traditional Chinese percussion since 1993, and reportedly stated on arrival that “to learn to play the drum, one must first learn to meditate.”

That connection is made abundantly clear in U Theatre's exactly honed performance. The performers, dressed in simple, monklike garments, have a concentration as absolute as it is tranquil. Movement and visual effects wreathe the sound in theatricality, but the essence of the piece is that sound—mighty, delicate, cerebral, visceral. It's the performers' total commitment, their years of intensive training, their wordless connection to one other, that allows the company to produce such marvellous musical effects.

Director Liu Ching-Ming and Wong have crafted some wonderfully dramatic moments: The piece begins with men and women walking slowly on, one at a time, to seat themselves with calm faces by their drums (large, medium, and small). As the house lights fade and the fidgeting audience stills, the theater feels like a mind quieting for meditation. The performers very slowly pick up their sticks—then suddenly there's an intake of breath, with a leap they strike the drums in unison boom! as the lights bump to full—the audience gasps and the performers are off and running. This first section, “Collapse,” is fast and wildly exciting. The performers flourish their arms in the air and cry out between their assaults on their instruments.

But the following section, “Flowing Water,” is even better. In a spotlight a woman noodles meditatively on a dulcimer-like instrument; out of the semidarkness others come walking ceremoniously, carrying small drums. Then a man allows one of his sticks to topple slowly toward his drum and bounce with a small poc! sound. Then another—poc! One raindrop follows another, and another, in a delicate, cascading, irregular fabric of sound. The rainshower seems improvised, but it's not—suddenly the rain stops as the drummers halt, their faces still, exactly synchronized—then, toc-a-toc, it starts up again. The performers seem to exist within the ebb and flow of that chattering, shifting sound. It's one of the loveliest experiences I've had in a long time.

Other highlights mostly involve gongs—the not-to-be-forgotten sound of a stageful of large gongs being struck all together, the reverberating buzz in your breastbone from a pair of even bigger gongs, and the amazing wave of sound from a really giant gong at the end—I never felt so aware of the fact that sound is made up of waves. U Theatre makes a theatrical event out of that scientific fact, startling, seducing, and flattening the audience by turns with breakers of sound. Amid the tapestry of drums and gongs we hear chimes, metal bowls, cymbals, conch shells, and the occasional human voice. I spoke to a man after the performance who felt that U Theatre's efforts were “pop culture” in comparison with traditional Japanese Taiko drumming, and I could see what he meant; there's certainly a New Age–ish component to The Sound of Ocean. Nonetheless, for me the occasional crudity of the theatrical presentation fell away before the majesty of the sound filling the Harvey Theater. The Sound of Ocean may not be as large, complex, and awe-inspiring as the ocean itself, but U Theatre has channeled the voice of that vast, unknowable part of nature nearly as well as human frailty can.

Artistic excellence? ****
Was it entertaining? ****
Was it inventive? *****
Was it healing? *****

(Updated on 4/9/04)

Pedro Ruiz and Sarah Skogland
in “Dejame Soñar”
Photo: George Kalinsky

Tina Ramírez established Ballet Hispánico in 1970, at a time when performance opportunities for Latinos in concert dance were slim. Today dynamite Hispanic dancers lead NYCB, ABT, and other major ballet companies, and Ballet Hispánico defines itself primarily as an ambassador of Hispanic culture. Unfortunately, Ramírez seems to be having trouble hiring enough dancers for her own company, Hispanic or otherwise, who can really pull off Latin dance.

In November Ballet Hispánico premiered NightClub at NYU’s new Skirball Center for the Arts (ugly decor, but good sight lines and size). According to the press release, the evening-length work “fizzes with the vibrancy of Latin music and dance.” This was my first time seeing Ballet Hispánico, and I was frankly surprised by the scarcity of Hispanic names on the company roster. Of course a name defines neither ethnic identification, necessarily, or dancing ability—but I was disappointed by the fact that the company’s dancing, with several exceptions, did not feel strongly Latin in character. Longtime company member Pedro Ruiz is glaringly overused, playing the male lead in all three sections. The problem seems to be that, with the exception of Eric Rivera, none of the other men appear to have the charisma or the authenticity to play Ruiz’s roles in this Latin-themed ballet.

NightClub consists of Graciela Daniele’s “Cada Noche… Tango,” choreographed for Ballet Hispánico in 1988, and two new works, Alexandre Magno’s “Dejame Soñar” and Sergio Trujillo’s “Hoy Como Ayer.” Unfortunately the new works are much weaker even than the overly-dramatic “Cada Noche,” which, although rather unfocused, has some strong moments. In a 1920s Buenos Aires brothel and dance hall, macho men in fedoras spar and pair off with gartered floozies. Daniele’s Broadway background is evident in the men’s cool, Fosse-esque entrance, their feet stamping a tango rhythm, their hats suavely touched low over their faces. Ruiz and gorgeous Norwegian newcomer Sarah Skogland perform the highlight of the evening, a surprisingly vicious tango duet full of psychological cruelty.

“Dejame Soñar” moves the action to a 1950s social club in Spanish Harlem, where recent immigrants find community in a foreign land. Where the first and last sections paint a sordid picture, this hopeful, melancholy section harks back to a more innocent time, when a nightclub offered fairly wholesome entertainment. The lovely Natalia Alonso, in the first section a wonderfully hardboiled madam, here is sweetly sexy as the fiancée Ruiz left behind in Puerto Rico. In some ways this choreographically weak section has the most potential; it attempts to tell a real story about Latino history in this country. It also highlights the fact that most of the company men, while exhibiting impressive technique, are totally unconvincing as Hispanic immigrants.

Alas, the turgid “Hoy Como Ayer” is quite dreadful. Set in a “drug-infested, neon-lit nightclub,” we follow Ruiz (yet again) as the timid, Clark-Kentish Stranger. After the Snake (Skogland, bizarrely wearing black pointe shoes) gets a hold of him, he loses his glasses, snorts cocaine, and ends up getting it on with the regal Queenie (Irene Hogarth). Alonso continues to prove her versatility, looking right at home as a club-hopping Latin babe. Strangely enough, the best part of this mess is a dreamlike, ecstatic orgy scene. But the choreography is a silly mixture of flashy ballet pirouettes and uninteresting club moves, and the so-called libretto (by Jim Lewis) is cringe-inducing.

NightClub’s thesis is that, whatever the era or social scene, the nightclub offers a microcosm of people’s dreams, insecurities, and longing for contact. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s been executed with such a sloppy disregard for consistency or believability that the piece just doesn’t float. And for a company billed as a Latin cultural experience, Ballet Hispánico isn’t looking—or, I should say, dancing—very Latin these days.

Artistic excellence? **
Entertainment? **
Inventiveness? **
Healing power? **

Suzanne Farrell was George Balanchine’s last great muse. Now, in association with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, she has embarked upon a career of staging his ballets, especially those with which she was associated during his lifetime. One of Balanchine’s principal strengths as a choreographer was his fascination with form; one of Farrell’s principal strengths as a performer was her passion. The two of them complemented each other.

One can appreciate Balanchine’s gift for form in his setting of the Mozart Divertimento No. 15. Ironically, the uncredited musicians perform the piece with a passion and dynamic variation which the choreography lacks, limiting itself to being a structural game. The structure means that Mozart is not ill-served, but the choreography does not move beyond him, either. Of the dancers, only Frances Katzen and Runqiao Du presented us with more than the clean execution of the steps. Both Momchil Mladenov and Alexander Ritter have airy, easy elevation and an ability to dance with their partners rather than being stolid props. Mr. Du, however, also has charm and a presence that invites the audience into his relationship with his partner. Ms. Katzen brought a lyricism to her variation that floated on top of the difficulty of the footwork.

Variations for Orchestra, danced by Shannon Parsley, was another intellectual game. The dancer is at times accompanied by her enlarged shadow projected onto the scrim in front of which she dances. Sometimes the shadow dances with her, sometimes in counterpoint. The movements include the little quirky hip thrusts or occasional flexed feet that became a Balanchine trademark in the ballet world. Ms. Parsley danced cleanly; perhaps Ms. Farrell was able to infuse the piece with something beyond itself when she danced it. The same may be said of Tzigane. This is a piece by someone who has run out of ideas and is depending on the performer to carry the day. Unfortunately, Natalia Magnicaball, the central figure, was not up to the task, which requires star quality rather than dancing, of which there was little. She looked better in Apollo, the final piece of the evening.

Apollo, dating from early in Balanchine’s career, owes much to the modern dance ideas of the 1930s. The movements, the use of cloth as both costume and prop, and the sculptural set, integrated into the choreography, make one think of Graham. Jennifer Fournier as Terpsichore brought some warmth and fluidity to her role, but the other dancers remained generally trapped in the mechanistic style of the choreography.

Artistic excellence? **
Entertainment? **
Inventiveness? **
Healing power? **

The new company George Piper Dances is directed by Michael Nunn and William Trevitt (otherwise known as The Ballet Boyz), two former Royal Ballet dancers. As part of their mission to make ballet accessible, they present reality videos during their shows which chronicle their journeys, literally, on their performance tours, and figuratively, in the process of choreographic sessions and rehearsals. Nunn and Trevitt are not only marvelous dancers, they are also charismatic and funny, and their home movies are very amusing as they reveal the hard work and exhausting hours that go into creating dance.

At their November Joyce engagement, the company was completed by Hubert Essakow, Oxana Panchenko, and Monica Zamora. Each performer was strong technically with great expressive power. The first piece, Septext (1984), was by ballet’s reigning choreographic leader, William Forsythe. Entering the theater, a dancer is already onstage going through a series of movements, perhaps to warm up. Then another enters and goes through a similar routine. Eventually, short bursts of sound herald the beginning of the piece and provide the musical impetus for the entire dance. One of Forsythe’s pieces that deconstruct or show pieces or sections of movement, rather than the flow of it, the work revealed the brilliant technical control of the dancers as they seemed to battle each other in the struggle for dance perfection.

In ABT's 2003 City Center season, it was a pleasure to see different works by various choreographers, from classical pas de deux to contemporary. Two works by Jirí Kylián and a world premiere by former principal dancer Robert Hill were presented as part of a contemporary works program in November.

In Kylián's Petite Mort, six female dancers and six male dancers in minimal beige costumes dance to a Mozart score. The piece as a whole is quiet and serious, but at times it has comedic elements, such as a dress moving on wheels across the stage. Kylián's choreography contains an unique feeling of floating, created by the full use of extension of all four limbs, by lyricism, and also by sharpness. Erica Cornejo and Michele Wiles's arms and legs were poetic, but they lacked sharpness. On the other hand, Sarawanee Tanatanit was crisp but not lyrical. Other dancers looked like they were desperately following the choreography. In such a performance, the fancy properties such as moving dresses, sabers, and a huge cloth like a wave did not look good at all.

The next piece, Sechs Tänze (“Six Dances”), is also choreographed by Kylián to Mozart. Eight white-painted young dancers in Victorian costume romp around. All the dancers seemed to be enjoying themselves, but they did not execute each movement fully, instead rushing to the next step.

Robert Hill's world premiere Dorian is based on Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. By some strange magic, Dorian retains his youth and innocent-looking beauty while, over time, his painted portrait changes to show the ravages of his evil, dissolute life. Unfortunately, Hill's choreography is excessively dramatic and the piece dragged, making the audience tired. On the other hand, the audience was lucky to see Jesus Pastor, who recently joined ABT, dancing the role of Dorian. He has a strong presence on stage, his dancing is elastic and spontaneous, and he expresses melancholy with grace. He is really something. The Picture, danced by Carlos Lopez, pushed too hard. Xiomara Reyes was very light and beautiful in her pas de deux with Pastor, but she overacted a little as her sexy character.

The ABT dancers have failed so far to sufficiently digest the technique required by Kylián's works. As for Dorian, the choreography was superficial because Hill makes too much of the piece's concept. I couldn't help thinking that ABT's productions of all three works need to wait until they mature.

Artistic excellence? ***
Entertainment? **
Inventiveness? ***
Healing power? **

ABT's 2003 City Center season consisted of four themed programs. In its Master Works Program, it was worth seeing how the dancers, seeming rejuvenated by the challenge, interpreted and dealt with these works by choreographic giants.

In Sir Frederick Ashton's Symphonic Variations, three male dancers and three female dancers are costumed like figures from Greek mythology, rather like the dancers in George Balanchine's Apollo. In this plotless ballet, dancers take the stage in turns for 18 minutes. There is no showy jumping and turning, and there is a lot of repetition. However, each pose is unique, and that makes this piece one to savor. Sweetness and elegance are depicted in a reserved tone; the profundity of Ashton's choreography is obvious there. Marian Butler and Maria Riccetto showed beautiful form, but both were breathing hard by the end. Maxim Beloserkovsky was graceful throughout. Ashley Tuttle was most wonderful. Although a little curt in the beginning, she danced consistently with great musicality, displaying a veteran's power.

In Martha Graham's Diversion of Angels, the woman in white (Stella Abrera), the woman in red (Sandra Brown), and the couple in yellow (Erica Cornejo and Herman Cornejo) managed the demanding choreography with room to spare, perhaps because they performed this piece in 1999. The other dancers, on the other hand, did not seem confident in their technique and were often off the music. However, the choreography, costumes, and music remain powerful and impressive, which compensated for defects in the performance.

Pillar of Fire is typical Antony Tudor psychological drama. Through the conflict of one girl, Hagar (Julie Kent), Tudor depicts three sisters' relationships with men. Kent was as good at registering subtle emotions as usual, but in this performance she lacked vigor, and she seemed too mature in the beginning. The roles of the two men with whom Hagar falls in love were performed by David Hallberg and Angel Corella. Their dancing was impeccable, but in terms of acting, they were not satisfactory. As the free-spirited youngest sister, Xiomara Reyes danced brilliantly, with innocence and cruelty. Although interesting details occur here and there in this piece, the dancers could not fully digest them, and they failed to add their own individual touches to the roles.

The last piece is an excerpt from Raymonda (Grand Pas Classique), newly staged by Anna-Marie Holmes. Michele Wiles was precise and daring, and Carlos Acosta was noble as well as powerful. However, on the relatively intimate stage of City Center, these two tall dancers looked like they needed more space, and sometimes scenes seemed crowded with too many dancers and so a little chaotic.

Unfortunately, all the pieces in the program were unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, it is wonderful to give young dancers the opportunity to dance various repertory.

Artistic excellence? ***
Entertainment? ***
Inventiveness? ***
Healing power? ***

Photo: Jack Vartoogian

Cloud Gate Dance Theater of Taiwan is a unique company. Its pieces create distinctive beauty by mixing tai chi, chi kung, and martial arts, which all emphasize breathing, with ballet and modern dance technique. In BAM's 2003 Next Wave Festival, the company drew applause from the audience with Moon Water, based on a Buddhist proverb, “Flowers in a mirror and moon on the water are both illusory,” and on the ideal state of tai chi practitioners, “Energy flows as water, while the spirit shines as the moon.”

As the name of this piece suggests, moonlight and the surface of water are represented onstage through sets, including mirrors, and lighting. The male dancers, naked to the waist, and the female dancers, in leotards, wear large pieces of cloth wrapped around the lower halves of their bodies. The impressive cello sound of the music, Bach's Six Suites for Solo Cello, pairs well with the solemn stage picture, and the choreography shows the company's influences. The tai chi–based movements maintain a low center of gravity and a consciousness of the lower abdomen. High jumping, kicking upward to clap a hand, pushing something invisible, and so on, seem derived from martial arts. Swirling movements are also often used; I found it amazing that those movements were sharp, but left an afterimage. All the steps are fluently connected and supported by the whole body, so that the choreography seems to be natural motion for human beings.

Photo: Jack Vartoogian

Every dancer in this company uses his or her body delicately and from head to toe. They are completely themselves, and with such strong concentration that they seem to be meditating on stage. Although the dancers come from different backgrounds, such as ballet and modern dance, they have all trained in meditation and in tai chi basics for five years. That training is wonderfully epitomized on the stage of Moon Water. A quiet but very intense chi (energy flow) circulates and interacts between the dancers. That energy not only makes the stage space very dense, it demands the audience's concentration too.

In addition to the beautiful movement and stage picture, the well-trained dancers' bodies are works of art in themselves. Flexible, elastic, and strong, their bodies possess a natural beauty, not artificial or machine-made, and their well-balanced muscle tone creates exquisite lines in the sleek movements. In the second half of the piece, as water gradually fills the stage, the wet costumes throw those bodies into clear relief. Both inside and outside, the dancers are vibrant with chi.

In Moon Water, the movement, the sounds of stringed instruments, the sets, the dancers' bodies, and, above all, the circulating chi all create a fantastic and profound world. Quiet throughout, but utterly original and solemn—it was impressively staged.

Artistic excellence? ****
Entertainment? ****
Inventiveness? *****
Healing power? ****

Photo: Claire Le Pichon

Noémie Lafrance's site-specific piece Descent has garnered a great deal of attention since it first debuted in 2001. In 2002 it was named one of the year's ten best performances by both the New York Times and Time Out New York. In 2003 it won two Bessie awards, for Lafrance's choreography and for Brooks Williams's score.

Lafrance is a specialist in site-specific choreography. In 2003 she choreographed Melt, in which dancers covered in melting beeswax were mounted on the concrete wall of Williamsburg's Black and White Gallery; her next work will be Noir, a piece inspired by film noir which will take place in a parking garage and be viewed through the windshields of parked cars. In Descent, first choreographed in 2001, then restaged in both 2002 and 2003, twelve female dancers perform in Stanford White's beautiful oval stairwell in the Clocktower Courthouse in Tribeca. As the piece progresses, audience members are guided in stages down the twelve stories, pausing to watch the ghostly tableaus being enacted both above and below them.

Descent is most effective in its wonderfully cinematic effects. Lafrance uses her twelve dancers on twelve stories to create hall-of-mirrors effects of great formal beauty; when all the dancers suddenly appear, framed in the receding ovals of the stairwell, and lean out over the bannister, it's breathtaking. As the audience peers down the vertical space of the stairwell, far-off hands float along bannisters, body parts flash by, and heads appear to look up at us. The dancers flit across the corners of vision like ghost-movie spirits; you never know where they'll appear next. When suddenly a dancer appears, fully visible, on the level below the audience, it's a little startling how close she is, as if the ghost stepped out of the mirror.

Williams's haunting score seems to conjure up the stairwell's long-dead inhabitants. Far below a woman breaks a feather pillow so that feathers explode out in a great, silent white cloud; another woman slowly lowers a bucket many stories down. Like mysterious spirits of domesticity, the twelve superb dancers hang laundry, hum, and whisper to each other. In a gorgeously sensuous section accompanied by the sounds of dripping water and windchimes, the now-topless dancers lean far out over the bannister and shake out their hair, one above the other; above, a woman pours water from a brass pitcher down the stairwell, wetting their hair. Their bare backs, their flung hair, and the water dripping woman to woman down twelve stories—it's a beautiful, evocative image of connection. The space of the stairwell, that column of air, becomes a place of possibility, and you're never sure what will come flying down it. (One audience member was hit in the head—twice!—by falling pieces of clothing.)

Toward the end I began to feel the piece was running a little long, and some of the later sections are less strong. But that is cavilling—Descent is a work of astonishing beauty and originality, and I look forward to seeing Lafrance's next effort. One feels a sense of loss when, at the end, the dancers wriggle away and disappear, laughing and giggling, as if escaping from us, after all, into some realm of their own.

Artistic excellence? *****
Entertainment? ****
Inventiveness? *****
Healing power? ****

Photo: Paul Kolnik

This November marked the third time I have sat through New York City Ballet's storied production of The Nutcracker, the holiday classic authoritatively (many feel) choreographed by George Balanchine in 1954. It doesn't appear to have changed greatly in the past fifty years. Preservation of a sacred trust? Or fossilization? “If it ain't broke, don't fix it,” I imagine NYCB's management saying to themselves, and certainly The Nutcracker continues to pack in audiences each Christmas.

Why is The Nutcracker so popular? Many people, especially at Christmas time, long for an imaginary childhood and for an idealized past, and the ballet capitalizes on that longing. In the aristocratic, nineteenth-century Christmas of a rich and happy nuclear family, little girls are given dolls and little boys are given toy guns. The small heroine, Marie, dreams innocently of a small prince who rescues her from danger, crowns her as his princess, and leads her away to his magical kingdom, where snowflakes, sweets, and fairies dance. Ah well. In the lobby, NYCB milks parents—and in these fiscally strapped times, who can blame them?—whose young daughters line up to be photographed with a chorine in a glittering snowflake tutu.

Clearly the ballet rides on spectacle and magic, and certain of NYCB's effects remain a pleasure. The starry Christmas tree that magically grows a hundred feet tall, as Marie dwindles before it in a sudden alteration of scale—that is good. I was also struck anew by the dance of the snowflakes, that storm of ballerinas, buoyed by Tchaikovsky's magical music, whirling and flitting in a wintry pine forest. It's a vision worthy of childhood imagination.

Alas, those frissons of wonder are fleeting. (And the bows taken by the principals at intermission effectively dispel the magic.) Yes, the costumes were created by the legendary Karinska, but they still look dated. And in the clunky second act, the Kingdom of the Sweets resembles a gaudy Candyland. The production's creakiness is particularly unfortunate because the ballet is weak in other respects. Traditional isn't always better: Unlike Mikhail Baryshnikov's version, which attempted to give the ballet some psychological complexity, Balanchine's version deemphasizes Marie's struggle between childhood and adulthood in favor of simple spectacle. And on this third viewing, I still thought Balanchine's choreography (heresy!) rather dull. Or was it the lack of personality, of artistry, among the dancers that made the ballet as a whole seem weak and unsupported? There are, of course, exceptions. Maria Kowroski as the Sugar Plum Fairy was queenly and elegant, although on that night she seemed a little off her turns, and she flings her arms distractingly when turning. Charles Askegard as her partner did not seem at the same level, landing heavily out of jumps, but Robert LaFosse made an engagingly gleeful Drosselmeyer.

But one dancer that night seemed to bring a positive gale of fresh air with her whenever she stepped onstage. As Dewdrop, Sofiane Sylve, a French dancer imported from the Dutch National Ballet this fall, cast everyone around her into the shade. This lovely dancer has long, strong limbs, clean arms, and a lot of power. Sure, deft, and unfussy in her movements, she makes ballet look natural. What's more, Sylve looks like she's enjoying herself onstage, and, watching her, I enjoyed myself too. Now there's an idea.

Artistic excellence? **
Entertainment? ***
Inventiveness? **
Healing power? **

Pan American
Repertory Theatre
The Legacy Codes
Performed at West End Presbyterian Church
Reviewed on 11/22/03 by R. Pikser

In December of 1999, the New York Times accused Taiwanese-born physicist Wen Ho Lee of spying on his employer, the American government, for mainland China. Although there was no evidence whatsoever for these claims, Lee was arrested, placed in solitary confinement, and had his life and career destroyed before being finally proven innocent. Neither the government nor the newspaper ever apologized. Playwright Cherylene Lee, no relative of the scientist, has used these events as the basis for The Legacy Codes, performed last autumn by Pan Asian Repertory Theatre. In her play, she has created an interwoven emotional setting to try to imagine how such unjustified, racist attacks might come about—as if such things could be made reasonable if only we understood more.

Ms. Lee weaves many elements into her story: parent-child tensions; a fraught interracial love affair; the rejection of his own family by a stellar nuclear physicist, even as he takes a young Chinese student under his wing; the subsequent sibling rivalry between the scientist’s son, now a security expert, and that Chinese student, now a physicist in his own right; the anguish of the physicist when he learns that his entire life’s work will probably be destroyed in a moment by incompetents meddling with his confiscated computer; the ridiculous levels that those engaged in “security” will not only stoop to, but will find reasonable; and the ever-present, ever-underlying issue of racism as part of the fabric of American life.

The acting is professional, with Jackson Loo outstanding as the physicist’s rap-artist son, treating his character with a trace of intelligent self-mockery that makes him charming. However, neither the cast members, excellent except for some moments of overdone face-making at the play’s climax, nor director Ron Nakahara, who has done some interesting staging in a tiny space, can rectify the underlying problem of the play, which is that Ms. Lee has not quite found her central theme. Endeavoring to understand all of her characters, sympathetic and unsympathetic, she considers miscommunication the essential problem, and thus all problems and concerns are given equal weight. Perhaps, with a more critical eye, she might refocus her attention on the essential dishonesty and myopia required of those who live their lives in the world of government secrecy. Then miscommunications would be understood to result from that dishonesty, and the play would be stronger structurally. Racism, too, intensifies in an environment in which only “we” can be trusted.
Ms. Lee has contributed a great deal merely by writing this play. Too few Americans at the present time are willing to question the injustices that take place in this country. It’s understandable when immigrants, who have actively chosen to come to the U.S., sometimes refuse to see those problems—but that doesn’t mean their lives will be any the easier for their blindness. If you buy into the war machine, you must accept that the machine may grind you up and spit you out; naiveté will not protect you. These are big issues, and if the play does not quite succeed in its present form, it only means that more work needs to be done—by the playwright, and by society.

Artistic excellence? ***
Was it entertaining? ***
Was it inventive? **
Was it healing? **

The Asian Society of Arts (ASA), a nonprofit organization founded by Asian artists working in New York City, held its first Asian Showcase of Arts in November. The event was anchored by the Faune Dance Troupe, led by choreographer Miho Maeda and ASA cofounder El Koji Kamata; many Asian artists from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the U.S. also participated.

Held in a small church, the event opened with powerful Japanese drum playing from two bare-torsoed men in Japanese Hakama pants. The drummers directed this energetic opening, in which they played not only Japanese drums but also cymbals and a gong, to New York, the melting pot of cultures. Inside the church, works by various artists were exhibited, including drawings, sculptures, and photographs, films playing, and a live drawing performance by a painter.

On stage, after the Faune Dance Troupe energized the audience by dancing Libertango, duets were played by a pianist and a violinist, and by a pianist and a vocalist. All the musicians were Japanese, and their performances were very Japanese in character—i.e., well-practiced, but too serious and technique-concerned, without playfulness. One hopes, next time, that they will share the stage with artists from other Asian countries.

Faune Dance Troupe closed the event with Carmen, choreographed by Maeda to the well-known story and score by Bizet. Although the dancers’ technical levels varied, Maeda choreographed suitably for each one of them to round out the whole company and the work. However, as her choreography is mostly just a visualization of the music, the work also seemed a bit weak in depicting the story through dance. Noriko Naraoka, who danced Carmen, covered up such weaknesses in the choreography with her strong technique and emotional expression.

Besides Naraoka, other notable talents seen at the event were two Japanese visual artists, Inco and Atsushi Yamaoka. In a live performance, Inco amazingly finished painting an abstract work in about 30 minutes, on a huge canvas using paint and crayons, of a human figure that runs, weeping, chased by his urban life. Yamaoka’s work, Japanese Garden, is a miniature stone garden created on a light box. Without light the garden appears to be simply a few rocks surrounded by white sands. When the light is switched on, however, one realizes the sand-like white things are tiny dolls of soldiers lying on their stomachs and holding guns to their shoulders. Both works maintain unique aesthetics yet are provocative, suggesting the creators’ keen artistic gifts.

Artistic excellence? ***
Was it entertaining? **
Was it inventive? ***
Was it healing? **