{"id":4968,"date":"2012-07-26T07:19:07","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T07:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/?p=4968\/"},"modified":"2017-08-29T01:53:30","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T01:53:30","slug":"tao-dance-theater-lincoln-center-festival-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/tao-dance-theater-lincoln-center-festival-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"TAO Dance Theater, Lincoln Center Festival, New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

Check out the full Financial Times article at this link.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

China came late to modern dance \u2013 and nothing is as deadly as a recent convert\u2019s earnest faith. So when the programme declared that Beijing choreographer Ye Tao, of the five-year-old TAO\u00a0Dance Theater, \u201ceschews representational modes of dance\u201d even to the point of forgoing words for numerals in dance titles, I thought I knew just what kind of discovery we were in for. What a relief to be wrong.<\/p>\n

The 90-minute show was not easy. The impersonality of its outrageousness may have precluded hot-headed protest, but by the halfway mark of the second piece the entire row behind me had tiptoed out.<\/p>\n

This duet, entitled 2<\/em>, began with Tao and co-choreographer Ni Duan lying on their bellies for five minutes like green mould against the bright white floor while folk-punk composer He Xiao engulfed us in high-pitched static. The piece ended strangely too, with the eccentric music carrying on after the dance had finished and the dancers had re-entered to wait for it to croak its last so they could bow.<\/p>\n

It was the first time they stood. Until then the duo had flopped about on their bellies and backs and sidled samurai-style from knee to knee in swampy, swirly, unexpectedly gorgeous patterns. But more than the low-riding style, the long freezes or the industrial detritus that Xiao mixed with fairy tinkles and swathes of chalky cello, it was 2<\/em>\u2019s flouting of structure that proved bracing \u2013 or, for some, unbearable. The duet was all about starting and stopping and starting again without ever quite becoming.<\/p>\n

I admired the squirm-inducing 2<\/em>, but 4 <\/em>really made me want to keep up with the young choreographer\u2019s work. This more audience-friendly quartet, of women moving in unison in a quadrant that swiftly and regularly shifted direction, confirmed how individual and complete Tao\u2019s language can be \u2013 and how integral to the dance\u2019s shape and the music\u2019s character. To a comic chorus of chanted nonsense syllables, the women roiled and jerked. An elbow or knee yanked them up, redirecting the waves that coursed through their bodies. The dance moved like a force of nature; the dancers, masked throughout, revealed a gawky humanity as much as an untamed grace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Check out the full Financial Times article at this [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-cn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Tao14.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6364,"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4968\/revisions\/6364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pingpongarts.org\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}