Wind Shadow LIN Hwai-min
I attended the performance Wind Shadow, by Cloud Gate yesterday night. Cloud Gate is a world renowned dance company which features LIN Hwai-min as their choreographer and founder. Despite many setbacks such as a burnt down studio, they have succeeded in bringing crowds to their feet (as Yun demonstrated) after breath taking performances.
However I was sorely disappointed with their performance yesterday. Much of the disappointment was contributed by the fact that I was looking forward to a dance performance rather than one relating to visual art. They focused largely on how shadows can be created by angling of lighting and the mimicry of other dancers depicting themselves as shadows rather than display an actual dance piece.
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However what caught my eye was the fact that they did not really have music. It was more of sounds accompanying the dancers as the moved. Music, in dance, is not only to accompany and beautify a dance piece. It also assist the dancers in keeping in time with each other. However despite the absence of continuous music, the dancers were able to keep in time with each other, and bring out the full meaning of how a shadow copies the human's movements in silence. The movements of the shadows were accurately in sync with that of the human's and they moved with such fluidity. This was particularly noticeable in the scene where the human's walked and moved forward, dragging their shadows behind them.
Perhaps LIN Hwai-min was trying to convey the idea of shadows as proof of who we are and what we've done. The shadows are a direct copy of the human's actions, hence as it is in life, our shadows are the proof of what we have done or where we have been. It follows us wherever we go and they remind us that we are indeed a walking, living person. However, when the shadows become interchangeable with the human's, we begin to wonder if shadows will strictly stick to their role of mimicking the human's movements, or do our shadows tell a different story, a different take on the decisions, actions and events in the lives of the humans. Perhaps shadows begin to take over us, consuming us where we end up mimicking them rather than they mimic us. They do not imitate us as they used to. They begin to alter their movements, and explore the boundaries, pushing pass simply imitating our actions and creating their own.
In the scene where shots of fire, silhouettes and sceneries are screened on white flags, we hear sounds of a baby's gurgling and later gun shots. It takes us from life to death. A baby representing life, and the explosions and gun shots representing death. Perhaps the billowing flags and wind signify passing in time, from a baby's infancy to premature death by gunfire in perhaps a war. Thus we can see how the viciousness of the world has consumed us and as the shadows appear to dance together, we see how all that is left of us humans are the shadows that we have left behind in our lives. The black snow that falls at the end, growing stronger at climaxing points in the music imply that the shadows are soon coming to an end, as is winter the end of a full season. Hence follows the black hole that sucks up everything.
The imagery displayed is that eventually nothing will be left. When we are born, when we die, the shadows that accompany us will one day be sucked up and disappear. Despite everything we do in life, the different marks we imprint in the society, eventually it will all come to naught and we will be left with the darkness that we began with.
Review by Deborah
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