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Thread: Martial Arts in Live Theater

  1. #16
    Here in Taiwan, Cloud Gate Dance Troupe is taught by a well known taijiquan teacher named Hsiung Wei and the troupe routinely incorporates the movements into their routines. The work of Hsiung Wei with Cloud Gate is quite well known here in Taiwan.

    Hsiung Wei has developed his own "brand" of taijiquan, which he calls a taiji dao yin (i.e. taji "exercises").

    take care,
    Brian

  2. #17
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    More on Be Like Water

    From our local Asian scene watchdog Jeff Yang
    Asian Pop: Bruce Lee's ghost gets part in play
    Jeff Yang

    Dan Kwong remembers as if it were yesterday the first time he saw Bruce Lee in all of his heavenly glory: "It was utterly mind-boggling," he says. "Here I was, in an audience predominantly composed of white men, and they were cheering - just cheering - for an Asian guy."

    Like many Asian American men, Kwong found that experience transformative. "Nowadays, there are many more positive and respected images of Asian men in the media, but back then, back in the '70s, he was it. He was all there was," says Kwong. "We grew up in this desert in terms of role models and heroes."

    So when Kwong, a performance artist who has made his name and career out of one-man shows like the acclaimed "Secrets of the Samurai Centerfielder," was commissioned to write his first play, it was almost inevitable that his thoughts would turn to the person whose career and legacy were life-changing, not only for him, but for many of his peers. "I can't tell you how many Asian American guys I know who've said to me, 'Bruce Lee was my lifesaver,' " he says.

    The result, "Be Like Water," premiered last week in a new production by Los Angeles's East West Players, the nation's oldest and most prominent Asian American repertory theater.

    "Opening night was terrific - we had a wonderful audience," says Kwong. "But it was nerve-racking for me! It's a whole new experience to be sitting in the audience and watching other people perform my work. Having to let go and allow other people to carry things along - it's a real shift in perspective."

    That's not the production's only shift in perspective: Ironically, given Bruce Lee's prominent role in shaping Asian American masculine identity, Kwong decided to make the play's protagonist a 13-year-old girl.

    "I'm not sure when I decided to make the main character female, but I realized that it set up so many more obstacles, for this character, who's a kung fu fanatic to be a girl rather than a boy," says Kwong. "It became an opportunity to explore a lot of issues around family relationships, gender roles and all of the expectations that you don't meet when you don't match up to society's expectations of how you're supposed to fit into a gender box."

    Fortunately, the production was able to draw on a flesh-and-blood example of what it's like to grow up as a girl in boyland: The show's martial arts choreographer happens to be Diana Lee Inosanto, whose father, Dan Inosanto, was one of Bruce Lee's closest friends and most prominent students.

    "My inclination has always been to be kind of skeptical around projects that focus on Uncle Bruce" - having grown up around Lee, Inosanto still can't help but think of him as "Uncle Bruce."

    "And when I heard about the play, I thought, 'Uncle Bruce's ghost is a character in this - huh.' It sounded like it could end up being a little exploitative. But I've worked with East West Players before, so I gave it a read. And I realized that Dan had done an amazing job, not only of capturing a side of Uncle Bruce that most people haven't seen, but also of creating a character I instantly connected with."

    Tracy, the play's lead actor, is a devotee of wing chun kung fu who refuses to embrace girly-girl pursuits and worships the late Dragon's legacy. But as Tracy's rigid worldview causes her relationship with her mother to deteriorate, Lee's spirit decides to stage an intervention - to remind her of the central lesson of his teachings: "Be formless. Shapeless. Like water. Soft and flexible, yet it can penetrate the hardest substance. Punch it, you cannot hurt it.... Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

    Water is receptive, adaptable, yielding - it is yin, the essence of femininity. And that softer, hidden side of Lee is what comes out in Kwong's play. "Dan brings out Uncle Bruce's sense of humor, which most people have never seen - people who only know his movies think of him as grim and serious, but he was hilarious," says Inosanto. "And he was an amazing family man. His kids, Brandon and Shannon, were the most important thing in the world to him."

    The portrait of masculinity most often seen in American media - the one that Asian American men are often driven to emulate - is harsh, aggressive, inflexible. It's a cowboy image, the maverick mentality; the unblinking, my-way-right-or-wrong attitude that has permeated not just pop culture but contemporary politics. So the decision by Kwong to reframe this icon of maleness to reveal his gentler, nurturing side is a uniquely relevant one, given the spirit of the times.

    It's distressing to think that the only way that women can rise to power in our society is still to out-man their male peers; it's equally disquieting to think that Asian men often feel an equal need to overcompensate, to push off stereotypes of the effeminate Asian male by embracing brusque machismo, emotional unavailability and ****phobia.

    That's something that Kwong has had to confront in himself as well. "There's a part of me in all of the characters in the play," he says. "But the character that I was probably closest to growing up is Jeremy" - the play's antagonist, a bully who terrorizes Tracy and her male best friend, whose name also happens to be Bruce Lee. "I grew up as an outsider and misfit in a working-class family, and I reacted by thinking I had to terrorize other kids to demonstrate my toughness."

    But it's this junior Bruce Lee whom Kwong points to as the strongest character in the play; a disco lover who shrugs off Jeremy's taunts of "sissy" and rocks out to the beat of his own drum machine, the young Bruce shows Tracy that sometimes not confronting aggressors is a greater act of strength than pushing back.

    Like his ghostly namesake, Lee shows the virtue of being soft and flexible, of going with the flow - in this case, to a syncopated, four-on-the-floor inner rhythm. Which is another characteristic the two Bruce Lees share. "Uncle Bruce loved disco," Inosanto says with a laugh. "He loved the moves, the clothing, the attitude - he was a 'Soul Train' fanatic. Don't forget, before he became a martial arts legend, he was the cha-cha champion of Hong Kong!"
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  3. #18
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    Yin + Yang

    More grist. Needs pics.

    Martial Dance presents . . . Paisley Arts Centre
    MARY BRENNAN October 20 2008
    Comment

    Star rating ***

    The curtain-raiser, performed by young dancers who'd taken part in the company's workshops, didn't just give the girls involved a chance to show off their newly acquired moves; it laid out some of the core influences that inform Martial Dance's signature style. The combative kicks, whirling leaps and brandished forearms are clearly taken from martial arts drill, while the floor-work and counter-balanced pairings point to the contemporary connections. White T-shirts versus black T-shirts set the tone: oppositions, a bit of stylised ruck, and a final image of united harmony when black was peeled off to reveal the white underneath.

    In Martin Robinson's solo, Yin + Yang, that interaction between the hard-edged, scything energy of martial arts practice and the softer flow of contemporary technique, was explored with a well-honed prowess that extended to spasms of precise body-popping. The "oh, wow!" factor strutted centre-stage. But not so as to eclipse the real power behind Robinson's focused physicality: mind-set. Concentration, discipline, attention to the creative thinking behind the steps all count. It helps, of course, if like Robinson you have the body of a versatile Slinky.
    Gene Ching
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  4. #19
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    Boxing Aikido and Stravinsky

    Even more grist. This time, with pic.
    Compagnie Heddy Maalem performs Tuesday in FirstWorks Festival
    01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, October 19, 2008

    Compagnie Heddy Maalem interprets Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring on Tuesday at the Providence Performing Arts Center as part of the ongoing FirstWorks Festival.

    Film meets dance. Grace meets violence. Compagnie Heddy Maalem performs The Rite of Spring.

    The one-hour dance concert, which is Tuesday in the Providence Performing Arts Center, is part of the ongoing FirstWorks Festival. The title is taken from the music for the production, Igor Stravinsky’s 1913 classical composition.

    “I perceived a strange connection between this music and the city I found myself in,” said Heddy Maalem, artistic director of his eponymous company.

    In 2005, Maalem, a French-Algerian, found himself in Lagos, Nigeria, a society of discord and violence. The inspiration for the piece started there, he said, but didn’t stop there.

    The Rite of Spring may be African in appearance, featuring 14 African dancers, but, Maalem said, it’s universal in its application, of beauty both attracting and repelling.

    “This dance is a spectacle that’s brought to people by other people, regardless of color. Color is not important. The fact that it is contemporary Africa is not important. It’s a human violence that I’m attempting to portray.”

    The portrayal is juxtaposed with film, a series of images created by documentary filmmaker Benoit Dervaux. While the Stravinsky piece was originally composed for ballet and is typically performed to ballet, here the movements are modern and African.

    For Maalem, a former boxer and practitioner of the martial art aikido, movement can be beautiful and violent.

    “A manifestation of beauty is connected to death.”

    You will not see jabs, hooks or uppercuts in The Rite of Spring. Maalem’s boxing background doesn’t inform his dance so directly.

    “I’m using the fundamental relationship between the body, time and space.”

    Maalem’s switch from boxing to dancing was gradual, starting 30 years ago, with aikido serving as the pivotal transition.

    “My eyes began to open to new things. Aikido is philosophy in movement.”

    — Bryan Rourke

    Heddy Maalem was interviewed through a French/English interpreter, Lydia Beckon, the development director of FirstWorks.

    Compagnie Heddy Maalem performs The Rite of Spring on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Providence Performing Arts Center, 220 Weybosset St. The show is preceded by a “JumpStart” show at 6:15 p.m. For tickets, $18 to $38, call (401) 421-2787 or visit www.ppacri.org.

    Tomorrow, Compagnie Heddy Maalem conducts a few free community events. From 3 to 4:30 p.m. Hardo Ka, a company member, leads a master dance class, which the public is welcome to watch, at Ashamu Dance Studio, off the main green at Brown University, followed at 4:30 p.m. with Maalem joining Ka in a so-called “meet and greet.” At 7 p.m. in Salomon 101 at Brown University, Maalem will be joined by three Brown professors to discuss his work The Rite of Spring.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
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  5. #20
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    Back to LEE/Gendary

    Check out LEE/GENDARY—A Review by our very own Douglas Ferguson.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
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  6. #21
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    glad to see it up there gene. thanks again for the asignment, i didn't expect leegendary to be so good. i wonder if bruce lee the musical will be so good.lol, well my co-choreagrapher Manny brown is part of the choreagraphy team, so while idk about a singing bruce, i know where in for some action on that one.

  7. #22
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    oh and i also forgot to mention. the pics of "betty ting pei" and of "betty" on top of "lee". were provided by my good friend kelly fung, who is an actress and photographer and another long time student of master Tak Wah Eng. thanks kells

  8. #23
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    Taiwanese Taiko?

    According to what was posted on our calendar, there's "evocative drumming, martial arts, dance, tai chi and meditation." That's what I want to do, watch some one meditate. But seriously, it looks interesting and in my own 'hood, but unfortunately I probably won't be able to make it.

    SOUND OF THE OCEAN by U-THEATRE

    Experience the show New York Times calls “Mesmerizing and Handsomely Choreographed”

    Sound of the Ocean is an intense physical and emotional experience. The work traces the cyclical journey of water from a drop to a stream and from a river to the ocean. Created by Artistic Director Liu Ruo-Yu and Master Drummer Huang Chih-Chun for U-Theatre, this 90-minute production represents a compelling and seamless work of rhythm and movement.

    Five Distinct yet beautifully interwoven sections evoke the sounds and sensations of water, its elemental cool surges, gentle ebbs and insistent rat-a-tat-tats. The five are animated by a theatrical tension devoid of explicit narrative. It is propelled by rhythms beat out on temple bells, gongs, and skinned drums of different sizes. The collective expressive power of the group is made possible by the extraordinary technical and athletic prowess of the individual performers. Daring feats of speed and precision create huge dynamic arcs as the piece moves from one section to another.

    U-Theatre’s performance of Sound of the Ocean earned the Best of Show award at the Festival d’Avignon in 1998 and, in 2000; U-Theatre accepted the Audience Choice award at the Biennale de la Danse in Lyon. Performances at the Berlin Art Festival Amphitheatre of Sound of the Ocean during August 2003 captivated Berlin theatre-goers. One article proclaimed Sound of the Ocean the “preeminent performance of the week in Berlin Theatre.” Since its premiere in 1998, Sound of the Ocean has been performed more than 120 times around the world, including engagements at the Venice Biennale, Lyon Biennale, Spain’s Millenia Festival, the Sao Paulo Arts Festival, Singapore Arts Festival, Bergen International Festival and BITE:02 at the Barbican, London, Next Wave Festival (BAM) in New York, and the Chekhov International Theatre Festival in Moscow.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
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  9. #24
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    Special Discount on Sound of the Ocean for KFM forum members!

    Hey check this out! For any of you locals, Gigi Oh, our publisher, just gave me a discount code for Sounds of the Ocean, the show mentioned above. If you order online through the DPA site above, you can get a 30% discount by using the code "TCMEDIA".

    If any of you take advantage of this, we'd love to hear your review of the show here!
    Gene Ching
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  10. #25
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    More on Sound of the Ocean

    If anyone goes, don't forget the discount above, and please, give us a post show review here.

    From Taiwan, a blend of drumming, martial arts, tai chi, and dance
    By Sheila Melvin
    for the Mercury News
    Article Launched: 11/12/2008 10:48:43 AM PST

    Taiwan's U-Theatre — which will perform "Sound of the Ocean" Saturday at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts — has built an international reputation with its signature blend of drumming, martial arts, tai chi and dance. A regular on the European festival circuit, it travels to the Bay Area from the BAM Next Wave Festival in New York.

    But U-Theatre strives to offer its audiences something even more powerful than a mesmerizing performance of drumming and movement: the opportunity for individual transformation and enlightenment.

    "During the 90-minute show, you will feel the excitement and energy of the drums," promises Jim Fung, executive director of Dimension Performing Arts, the presenter. "But at the end, you will have a transformative experience and feel the show inside you."

    A music drama in five parts, "Sound of the Ocean" is staged without intermission so as to preserve the spell it casts on performers and audience alike. The performers strike temple drums, skin drums and gongs of varying sizes in powerfully choreographed synchronicity and at times chant "om," which in Buddhist cosmology is considered the sound of the universe. For this performance, U-Theatre members are joined by Chiow Yen-Liao on guqin (Chinese zither) and Iki Tadaw, an aboriginal singer from Hualien on the eastern coast of Taiwan.

    "Sound of the Ocean" has a minimal story line built around the path of individual drops of water that join together to form a stream, which becomes a river and eventually flows to the ocean. There, in the deepest ocean depths, the individual drops into the realm of the "unknown and unrevealed," a metaphoric reflection of our path through life and death — and, not incidentally, of the ideal theatrical experience.

    This may seem a lot to deliver in just an hour and a half of drumming and dance, however powerful, but U-Theatre performers come prepared. Indeed, for founder and artistic director Liu Ruo-yu and music director and composer Huang Chih-chun (who are a married couple), preparation is everything — and it is intense.

    U-Theatre members work together in an open-air mountain theater on the outskirts of Taipei, Taiwan's capital.

    "We have long rehearsals on the mountain," Liu explains by telephone from New York. "This gives us energy to work together, and it gives us a very ancient spiritual feeling."

    Liu's dedication to rehearsing in a natural environment dates back to the 1980s, when she spent a year in Los Angeles under the tutelage of the late Polish theater director Jerzy Grotowski. "Jerzy used candles, fire, dark, lamps . . . We trained from 4 p.m. until 1 a.m. — all the training was in a natural place," Liu explains. "That influenced me a lot; so when I went home, I decided to start my own group and look for a natural place. By luck, my father had just bought a mountain."

    Liu and her performers rehearsed on the mountain and traveled around Taiwan to immerse themselves in its rich and varied culture, which encompasses Chinese traditions, Japanese influence and the distinct customs of 14 officially recognized aboriginal tribes. In the mid-1990s, when Huang joined the group as drumming director, they added meditation to their daily practice of drumming, tai chi and dance. "Meditation is asking a person to always be aware of their actions," Liu explains. "We don't teach percussion right away; we teach (theater members) to focus, to feel the quiet — and then to hit the drum. Even though the drums are very loud, people still feel quiet in their minds."

    Lou adds that walking is also "a way of meditation for us. We walked around the whole Taiwan island, for 50 days — this helps our inner side to get quiet."

    Although it may seem counterintuitive for the leader of a drumming ensemble that gives highly physical — and loud — performances, "quiet" is a word that Liu uses often and a state she says her performers always seek. "When we feel the quietness, we get more clear; we get more aware of our physical side; there's a different feeling, and it helps the performance of the artists."

    Liu also hopes that audience members will find their own personal "quiet" in the midst of the excitement of the show. "Usually people say they feel quietness, even though the drums are very loud. Once in Taiwan, somebody saw our drumming and said it is like the center of a typhoon, the eye of a storm."

    Once you feel the quiet, the promised transformation becomes possible, although the presenter isn't making any guarantees.

    "The level of enlightenment inside each of us will dictate how we feel about this performance," explains Fung, of Dimension Performing Arts.

    So, if you come out of the show feeling entertained, but not entirely transformed, do not despair — it just means you have more work to do.

    "Sound of the Ocean"

    A multimedia show by U-Theatre of Taiwan,presented by Dimension Performing Arts

    When: 8 p.m. Saturday
    Where: San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 Almaden Blvd.
    Tickets: $30-$55, VIP $100; (408) 568-5861, (408) 260-2206
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  11. #26
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    Divine Performing Arts

    It's Epoch Times. You know what that means...

    Designer Enjoys the DPA Performance
    By Omid Ghoreishi
    Epoch Times Staff Dec 22, 2008

    Divine Performing Arts

    HOUSTON—Martial arts teacher, Joseph Tranvan, can appreciate the techniques and art in the Divine Performing Arts (DPA) show.

    Tranvan, who saw the DPA 2009 World Tour performance in Houston’s Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, says the customs add a different flavor to the performance, which is not commonly seen in other performing arts such as ballet.

    “This is different. It has a nice twist to it because you see modern elements of dance, then you see the traditional,” says Tranvan, who is also a graphics and multimedia designer and a photographer.

    “I thought it was great. It had a good universal message of hope,” he says.

    “I liked the costumes, they are a little different take on the [Chinese] culture,” he says. Tranvan also enjoyed the classical music and the piano performance.
    Peace Activist in Harmony With Themes of DPA Show
    By James Fish
    Epoch Times Staff Dec 22, 2008

    Divine Performing Arts

    SARASOTA, Fla.—While many people who attended the Divine Performing Arts (DPA) show at Sarasota’s Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall on Dec. 22 came with no prior exposure to traditional Chinese culture, Cody “Flying Eagle” Templeton came to the Divine Performing Arts show already appreciating Asian culture.

    Dr. Templeton, a minister and president of Shunyata-Kai International, an organization dedicated to creating internal peace to bring about world peace, was experienced in dance, martial arts, theater, and knew Asian culture and philosophy.

    For him, seeing the DPA show was seeing the enactment of a dream he had more fully than he had been able to realize. He found great harmony between the principles expressed in the show and his own beliefs.

    “Inspirational, powerful, very much within the teachings of where our organization is going, with individual peace leading to world peace,” was how Dr. Templeton described his impression of the show.

    “I hope in the future more people get to see this show. It is a blending of two different cultures, which I have been trying to do for thirty-nine years. It is very inspirational.”

    Dr. Templeton had wanted to use the various aspects of Asian culture in shows of his own.

    “A lot of what I look for this show has, with the drums, the colors, the blending of the culture and the dance. I used to be the director of a theater company in New Mexico, and a show like this was what I was trying to produce there.”

    When pressed to describe a favorite number, Dr. Templeton picked the Tibetan dances. “I enjoyed them the most because of my Tibetan roots and martial arts backgrounds. But I enjoyed all the dances, the culture. What I saw here was something I lacked in all my kung fu and tai chi training, the dance part. I always wanted to get more into it.

    “I loved what they did with the flowers [“Welcoming Spring”] and the silks [“Flowing Sleeves”].

    “I loved the references to the eight immortals [figures from traditional Chinese lore] and the Buddha. I loved the whole thing from beginning to end.”
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  12. #27
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    I knew this one would pay out...

    Lee's comments on wushu & dance are exactly what this thread is about.
    Chinese New Year Spectacular in S.F., Cupertino
    Mary Ellen Hunt
    Sunday, January 4, 2009

    If ancient Chinese goddesses were modernized to the 21st century, one imagines that they would look a lot like Vina Lee, the tall, fine-featured, elegant choreographer and dancer whose artistry graces the Chinese Classical Divine Performing Arts Company in the troupe's forthcoming performances of the Chinese New Year Spectacular at the War Memorial Opera House and the Flint Center in Cupertino.

    Delicately sipping tea one afternoon in the cafe at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, the soft-spoken yet forthright Lee speaks animatedly about growing up in China and the love for her country's cultural history that colors her view of Chinese dance.

    Trained at the Beijing Academy of Dance, Lee studied classical ballet as well as Chinese classical dance and folk dance. In the late 1980s, she danced with the Guangdong Dance Theatre, but a yearning for artistic and political freedom led her to immigrate to Australia, where she taught and danced for several years before becoming a dancer and assistant company manager for the Divine Performing Arts Company and choreographer for its boldly ambitious and enormously popular Chinese New Year Spectacular.

    The show - which each year features new entries in a smorgasbord of vignettes - takes viewers on a visually dazzling tour of 5,000 years of Chinese history and culture via bravura displays of acrobatics and grand tales told through flourishes of Chinese classical dance. With hundreds of dancers in two dozen carefully designed, richly costumed pieces - everything from colorful handkerchief dances, Imperial-style dances in high platform shoes, drum dances, folk dances and wushu displays - it's a heady blend of the ancient and modern, of traditional Chinese instruments and their Western counterparts, and contemporary experiences expressed using the formality of Chinese classical dance.

    The true traditional Chinese dance, Lee says, blends three crucial elements: the yun or manner of carrying one's body, the technique and the physical forms, such as the positions and combinations of movements used in training martial artists.

    Methods of teaching Chinese dance, Lee says, were rarely written down, but although ways of teaching dance may have changed over time, much of the technique and forms have been passed down from generation to generation through wushu training.

    "Wushu, or martial arts, used in soft ways is dance, and vice versa," she says. "Martial arts never really changed - it got better, but the style did not change."

    The yun, however, is a different story. The way a people comport themselves depends on the culture, and China's culture has evolved vastly since the Communist Revolution and the modernization of its society. Some of what makes Chinese yun, Lee says, has been lost in the process.

    "The modern contraction," she says, tightening her midsection into a curve modern dancer Martha Graham would easily recognize, "is very different from the Chinese curve. It is inhale, exhale - that's a different energy."

    Without standing up from the cafe table, Lee strikes a subtle but definitely different note, curling and rounding her torso to illustrate what immediately seems - even to an untutored eye - to be a more characteristically Chinese pose, one closer to the graceful statues of goddesses such as Kwan Yin and Ho Hsien-Ku.

    "Lots of shows claim to be Chinese dance," Lee says. "It's familiar to Western audiences, but they may wonder, why do they do this movement or that movement? Even lots of dancers are confused as to what is real Chinese dance."

    Lee strikes a pose, covering her face flirtatiously with an imaginary fan.

    "They may look with the eyes like this," she says, glancing over her fan with a bit of come-hither peekaboo. "But in true Chinese dance, the women are conservative, more shy. They are hiding their faces with the fan," she adds, changing her pose slightly to convey a more delicate sensibility.

    Since moving to Australia in 1990, Lee has not been back to China. A practitioner of the spiritual discipline of Falun Gong - a modern form of the ancient qigong practice of meditation and control, whose adherents have been heavily persecuted by the Chinese government in the past decade as a fringe religious sect - Lee has sensed political pressures, even far from her homeland.

    Although at first glance the spectacular might look like more of a grand cavalcade of Chinese cultural scenes than a vehicle for a political agenda, some of the show's vignettes have depicted stories that reference hot buttons such as Falun Gong or repression in Tibet. Lee says that in some of the places the company has toured, Chinese officials have attempted to discourage local audiences from attending their shows.

    "Because we dare to raise human rights issues, we're a 'Falun Gong show,' " she says. "And if you say 'Falun Gong,' people suddenly become scared.

    "Since I was a child, I have always loved the real Chinese culture, but the Chinese government doesn't want the old culture to come back. They want to damage it, not only on the outside, but internally, too."

    A return to core principles of traditional Chinese art is what Lee feels sets the Divine Performing Arts Company apart from what Western audiences have come to understand as Chinese dance. The Chinese New Year Spectacular, she says, harks back to a purer form of the Chinese dance, one built upon not just the motions of Chinese dance but also on a respect for divine gifts, virtue, sincerity and good deeds.

    "I hope that through our performance that we are deeply connecting with life, not just entertainment," she says. "It's not just Chinese culture. It is the principles all peoples share."

    CHINESE NEW YEAR SPECTACULAR: $30-$180. 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat. and 2:30 p.m. Wed., Sat. and next Sun. War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. Also 7:30 p.m. Jan. 13-15 and 2:30 p.m. Jan. 14. Flint Center, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino. (415) 512-7770, www.divineshows. com.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  13. #28
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    One thing I gotta say about DPA...

    ...they sure know how to get press.
    Reviving traditional art for the Chinese New Year
    By Andrew Gilbert
    for the Mercury News
    Posted: 01/08/2009 12:00:00 AM PST

    As a child growing up in southern China during the turmoil and brutality of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, Vina Lee thought her family's forced journey to the countryside was a welcome break from daily life. But targeted for re-education by the Red Guard, her father — a violinist — lost years of his life and his livelihood, a fate suffered by countless artists made suspect by their training and knowledge of both Western and traditional Chinese art forms.

    "He was lucky compared to most people. He was sent to the countryside to work in the farm but he didn't lose his life," Lee says.

    "For me going to the countryside was like a holiday, but now I realize he was suffering. My parents couldn't tell their children the truth about their lives, because if a child said something to the wrong person they could get them into serious trouble."

    As a choreographer steeped in ballet and classical Chinese dance, Lee now challenges China's communist government through her work with Chinese New Year Spectacular, a lavish production that celebrates traditional art forms decimated by the Cultural Revolution. Featuring a full orchestra and more than 50 acrobats, dancers and singers in Technicolor costumes, the globe-trotting show can be seen at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco tonight through Sunday, and opens a three-day run at the Flint Center on Tuesday.

    From a stately dance performed in the court of the Manchu emperor to dazzling acrobatic displays portraying warriors battling mythical creatures, Chinese New Year Spectacular presents a rarefied vision of Chinese culture.

    "During the Cultural Revolution a lot of the arts were damaged," Lee says. "People lost the connection with our culture. We created this production to present the beauty that was there, and what it should be."

    A graduate of the Beijing Academy of Dance, Lee was a principal artist with Guangdong Dance Theatre. After moving to Australia in the late 1980s, she spent many years teaching with the Sydney Dance Company. In 2006 she relocated to New York City, where she became assistant company manager and principal dancer for Divine Performing Arts, the company that produces Chinese New Year Spectacular.

    While she trained in Chinese classical dance as a youth, Lee focused on Western ballet instead because she felt that the government often twisted traditional art forms. "Lots of culture had a very strong direction to promote communist ideology, so I naturally refused to do so," Lee says.

    But Divine Performing Arts reignited her interest in classical forms. Living in Australia, she often saw Chinese culture presented through a narrow lens, diminished to the lion dance and fireworks. Through her work as a dancer and choreographer, she has helped preserve the essence of traditional Chinese dance, known as the yun, which involves technique, movement and comportment.

    While traditional forms and techniques were passed down through the centuries through martial arts wushu training, Lee says that the yun, the physical way that people carry themselves, has been much more vulnerable to the modernization ushered in by the communist revolution, and then again by the economic liberalization of the early 1980s.

    "If I show you the traditional Chinese movement, there is lots of internal tension, and that bearing carries a culture," Lee says. "When Chinese raise their arms, it's very different from in the West, because there's a different intention. The way we use contractions is very different from, say, in Martha Graham. It's very subtle, but you can tell if you watch.

    "When China opened the door and the communist party allowed everything to come in, we saw lots of contemporary dance. Now we are a great country, and we can learn everything. But some things have been lost. Now they are not showing traditional culture, because it's mixing with contemporary dance."

    Chinese New Year Spectacular isn't built around a single narrative. Rather, it unfolds as more than a dozen discrete acts showcasing a wide array of traditions and practices, including Tibetan culture and movements drawn from Falun Gong, the sect that has been denounced and targeted by the Chinese government.

    Not surprisingly, the Chinese government has sought to shut down the production in Australia and elsewhere, according to Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper.

    "We booked a theater, and the management tries to cancel after pressure from the Chinese government," Lee says. "They use the Falun Gong issue. They try to stop the show in any way they can, sending letters to VIPs and government officials in Australia.

    "The authorities are so scared that the cultural values being presented will come back. I feel great the production makes them scared."

    Chinese New Year Spectacular

    When: 7:30 p.m. tonight and Friday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday
    Where: War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco
    Tickets: $30-180. (415) 392-4400, www.sfshow.net.
    Also: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and 7:30 p.m. next Thursday, Flint Center for the Performing Arts, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino. $30-80, (408) 864-8816, www.sfshow.net.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  14. #29
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    trickers

    Official website for Theatricks

    We've discussed trickers. And we'll have something new on Mullins soon.

    Theatricks martial arts show at CLC February 20
    February 19, 10:53 PM
    by Christine Nyholm, Lake County Examiner

    On Friday, Feb. 20, an exciting martial arts-based show called “Theatricks” comes to the College of Lake County. In the show, four young boys who aspire to be great martial artists enter the dreamscape world of Theatricks, where dreams come to life in a cabaret of music and action.

    The show, which has been seen on TV’s “America’s Got Talent,” is a spectacular combination of gymnastics, acrobatics and martial arts featuring five-time American Karate Champion Matt Mullins.

    Mullins’ Sideswipe Performance Team is a martial arts-based group that blends traditional martial arts such as Karate and Tae Kwon Do, with gymnastics and acrobatics, to create an extreme, high-flying display of talent, strength and stamina unlike anything else. Based in Los Angeles, Sideswipe has been entertaining audiences across the country over the last three years, performing on television, stage, at sporting events, live action shows and karate tournaments. For more information about the show and to view photos and videos, visit the Web site.

    Tickets for 7:30 pm Show

    Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. show are $33/28/24. CLC student tickets are $16 each (level III seating only). Discounts are also provided for seniors 65 and over, CLC Alumni Association members and groups of six or more.

    Special Matinee

    A special matinee show/workshop for school groups will be held at 11:15 a.m. on Feb. 20, with general admission tickets priced at $11. Ticket prices include a $1 JLC restoration fee. Tickets are available at the CLC Box Office in the James Lumber Center on the Grayslake Campus, 19351 W. Washington St. Tickets can be purchased in person, by phone at (847) 543-2300,. For group sales information, call (847) 543-2739

    Upcoming Golden Dragon Show March 20

    The Box Office is offering a half-off special for patrons who purchase tickets to the upcoming Golden Dragon Acrobats show on March 20. Patrons will save 50 percent on tickets to Theatricks when they buy Golden Dragon tickets by phone. The limit is two tickets per event, and the offer ends Feb. 19.

    The James Lumber Center for the Performing Arts at the College of Lake County serves as a cultural resource center for Lake County and surrounding areas by offering performing arts events of the highest quality. To request a CLC performing arts and cultural events calendar, call (847) 543-2300.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  15. #30
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    Wushu to the Ravi Bandu Ensemble

    As long as it's not Eye of the Tiger again, I'm pretty amused with any variation to the soundtrack....
    Chillies 2009 to feature martial arts, drums fusion

    This year's edition of the much talked about and highly anticipated Sri Lanka Advertising Awards, the Chillies 2009, will be taking entertainment to a whole new level with the goal of defying expectations. Using its theme, "You Can't Kill It", to maximum effect, this year's focus has all along been to ensure performances witnessed at the Chillies 2009 Main Event wow audiences with a dramatic mix of sights and sounds. Most stunning of these by far is the planned fusion of acrobatic martial arts skills by Sri Lanka's Wushu Federation paired with heady drum beats by famed Sri Lankan music maestro Ravi Bandu, both joining togther for the first time to create a performance never before seen on the Sri Lankan stage. This and much more awaits those attending the Chillies 2009 Main Event to be held on Saturday, May 2, from 6.00 p.m. onwards at SLECC.

    The first Sri Lankan performance to feature Wushu, also popularly known as Kung Fu, a martial arts style that is over 3,000 years old, this performance which will premiere exclusively at the Chillies 2009 will pull no punches with its spectacular combination of acrobatic displays in tune with frenetic, rhythmic drum beats, all with the sole purpose of capturing and mesmerising the audience in as yet unfathomable ways. At the every least, the Chillies 2009 promises to be a treat for the senses with performances planned to be memorable in the extreme.

    With origins in China, Wushu literally translates to mean “Martial" (Wu) and "Arts” (Shu), and is purportedly the first martial art in the world created by man using his scientific knowledge for defensive as well as offensive techniques. Wushu is at the same time highly visual and potentially lethal, with tournaments encompassing both performances and combat facets of Wushu. Counting Asian film star Jet Li as its international ambassador,

    Wushu has most notably achieved significant success locally with the Sri Lankan delegation winning four gold medals at the South Asian Federation Games held here in 2002, while several Wushu clubs have also been established, even as far away as Kandy and Trincomalee.

    Meanwhile, the formidable task of putting music to Wushu's potentially superhuman feats falls Sri Lankan musician extraordinaire Ravi Bandu. There being none better with him being acclaimed far and wide for his musical artistry and diversity. Whether known for his sensational percussive feats or his oriental dance skills, Ravi Bandu is an all around performance artiste in the truest sense. Well regarded for his significant contributions to local, as well as fusion, music, he is also the man behind the eclectic Ravi Bandu Ensemble, which combines the best of eastern and western music with the help of an acoustic guitarist, a saxophonist, a flautist, a sitarist, a tablist and a keyboard player.

    The Chillies 2009 Main Event, on Saturday, May 2, from 6.00 p.m. onwards at SLECC follows Chillies Week 2009, which kicks off with a "Brief to a Grand Prix”, a workshop conducted by Cannes Lion Grand Prix winner Agnello Dias, on Monday, April 20, from 9.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m., at the Longdon Room. The week then continues with "Creativity in Two Worlds", a seminar conducted jointly by creative powerhouses, Dentsu Japan’s Masaka Okamura and JWT India’s Senthil Kumar, on Tuesday, April 21, from 6.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m., at the Upper Crystal Room. Next are the always popular Judges Forum - Print & TV on Wednesday, April 22, from 7.00 p.m. onwards and Judges Forum - Radio & Non Traditional Media on Thursday, April 23 from 7.00 p.m. onwards, both at the Upper Crystal Room. Final learning opportunities include "It doesn’t have to be an Ad", a workshop conducted by former ECD TBWA/ Tequila Singapore and Chief Integrator for Asia, Graham Kelly, on Friday, April 24, from 9.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m., at the Regency Room, and a seminar on "Creativity in tough times", also by Graham Kelly, on Friday, April 24, from 6.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m., at the Upper Crystal Room. Chillies Week 2009 will end with the 2009 Finalists Exhibition slated for Tuesday, April 28, to Thursday, April 30, from 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m., at On Golden Pond. All events, except for the Chillies 2009 Main Event at SLECC, will be held at Taj Samudra Colombo, the official partner hotel for the Chillies 2009.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

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