Cursive II: Cloudgate Dance Theatre Of Taiwan

Introduction

Cursive II, is the second of a modern-dance trilogy that is inspired by ancient Chinese calligraphy, and those who have created it over thousands of years. Danced by the Cloud Gate (a name which itself reflects a form of Chinese dance thought to be around 5000 years old) Dance Theatre of Taiwan, the choreography was created by Lin hwai-Min, who founded the company over 30 years ago.

This part of the trilogy is split into 10 (or 11, depending on where you start counting from I suppose) sections, which flow seamlessly into one another - rather like the cursive style of writing which inspired Lin.

As with most ballets (although not all!) we would expect some music, and Lin has chosen some of the most austere John Cage to `accompany` the movement, and this works very well indeed, but more on that later.

Video

The quality of the video is fine, and brings out the complexities of the lighting during the performance brilliantly. As usual with Opus-Arte productions, it is a NTSC 16:9 Anamorphic transfer.

Audio

Sound is in Stereo or DTS (definitely worth it here), and needs to be as clear as possible for the incredibly subtle shifts in tone colour and volume of Cage`s music. Luckily I wasn`t disappointed - we can hear rather too much in fact, if that was the air-conditioning in the studio which ran consistently in the backhround (underneath the obvious wind and nature sound effects). This shouldn`t be too much of an irritation though.

Features

Extras include a 20 minute introduction ot the work called `Dragon flying and phoenix dancing`. This reflects the Chinese saying that a good piece of calligraphy brings the image of these two creatures to mind.

In the introduction, Lin (or rather Mr. Lin, as he is called by his colleagues - who show a huge amount of respect for the man) explains very clearly his influences for the work, and this would have sufficed for most DVD releases, but we also have a fascinating and very moving hour-long documentary `Floating on the ground`, in which Lin describes his upbringing during the 40- year period of Chinese martial law, his subsequent training in the States, and his conversion to Buddhism.

Without being disrespectful to Lin or his colleagues, it may be advisable to have English subtitles on during the introduction and main documentary as some of the Chinese accents (despite impeccable English) are rather hard to get to grips with.it`s also slightly unfortunate that Lin likes saying `calligraphy`, and you can tell it`s coming with the subtitles on..but I digress horribly.

Conclusion

Cursive II is nothing short of astounding.

Lin has created a work which blends Eastern and Western dance tradition, with a smattering of martial arts (at least to the untrained eye), and shows off the dancers` skills in quite an amazing way. It all looks incredibly complicated, and I`m sure looks aren`t deceptive in this case, but when the group sections appear, the uniformity of the movement beggars belief. This is even more astonishing (not sure I can use that many more superlatives, but I`m sure you get my drift) when you consider that the music Lin has chosen is not the most rhythmic of John Cage`s output, but mainly quite static and has very little noticeable tempi. Even here, the dancers seem to be listening to some unheard click-track as when the music does have something changing, they are there at exactly the same moment - and you can`t just count 1,2,3,4 to this stuff.

Highly addictive and definitely recommended to dance enthusiasts, and anyone with an imagination.