Despite Pink Floyd, it's no great 'Wall' of China

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DANCE REVIEW
Despite Pink Floyd, it's no great 'Wall' of China

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BY SUSAN REITER
Susan Reiter is a freelance writer.

February 11, 2005


BEIJING MODERN DANCE COMPANY. Willy Tsao, artistic director. "Rear Light" choreographed by Li Hanzhong and Ma Bo, music by Pink Floyd. Through Sunday at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. at 19th Street, Manhattan. Tickets $34; call 212-242-0800 or visit http://www.joyce.org. Seen Tuesday.

The history of modern dance in China goes back less than two decades, so it is fascinating to see what choreographers there are up to. "Rear Light," the 2002 piece with which the Beijing Modern Dance Company is making its New York debut, showcases potent ensemble work in its grim, sometimes militaristic group scenes. Set to the haunting score of Pink Floyd's 1979 "The Wall," it explores themes of suspicion and confrontation. It does not always cohere, however, and loses focus during an aimless audience-participation sequence.

The work opens with the dancers, dressed in white shirts, black ties and black pants, coming down an aisle onto the stage with ticket stubs, as a haughty, leather-clad usher lets them pass, and they assume assigned spots on massive metal bleachers. A straggler in a gray trenchcoat who has no ticket is sent away but then returns. The others, having also donned trenchcoats, are poised implacably on the metal rungs as he gesticulates urgently toward crime-scene body outlines on the floor.

Propelled into action by the first song, the group lunges and twists in eerily robotic unison as the straggler remains below, slithering desperately along the floor. His outsider status changes instantly when he lines up with the rest as a bank of 40 headlights blazes toward the audience. The dancers all turn into guerrilla combatants, crawling along and firing imaginary guns.

A heavy hanging spotlight descends above the clustered dancers, sending them reeling backward and nearly crushing one in the center: random danger. Then they start passing the object of terror between them, pushing it back and forth almost playfully.

As the 70-minute work progresses, striking images lose their impact in muddled scenarios, and it is mainly the dancers' focused intensity and the music's resonance that hold things together. The dancers execute their choppy, often strident movements forcefully and unsubtly.

The outsider theme comes and goes, and an extended duet (in which the woman wears a pink gown, the evening's only splash of color) evolves from initial wariness to mutual support. By the time the dancers begin aimlessly boogying, enlisting a dozen volunteers from the audience to join the party, the grim power had dissipated significantly.

The party is over when an eerily dejected parade of dancers troop onstage behind a leader bearing a yellow pennant. Again, they turn on someone in their midst, surrounding him as the music builds to a final oppressive chant, and, one by one, they sink to the floor.
Copyright ? 2005, Newsday, Inc.

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