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THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, JULY 16, 1999

DANCE REVIEW
Of Grief and Tiananmen Square

By JENNTFER DUNNING
One of the most interesting aspects of the Asia-Pacific Contemporary Dance Festival At Kaye Playhouse has been the stories of how each of the four modern-dance troupes was founded. The Taipei Crossover Dance Company of Taiwan, which performed on Wednesday night, was founded in 1994 by a leading Taiwanese lighting designer, Lin Keh-hua, and four veteran members of the Cloud Gate Dance Theater. Cloud Gate, one of the oldest modern-dance by Lin Hwai-min, a writer who became enamored with American modern dance as a student in New York.

Martha Graham was his inspiration. And Graham’s appetite for large themes was an evident influence in Mr. Lin’s “requiem,” performed to a score by Franz Liszt, whose emphatic simplicity gave it the sound of an early modern-dance score by Louis Horst. Dedicated to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the solo places a woman at the center of the stage. The dance never lets her stray for from that spot as she dips and rises, her columnar body and fluting dark dress a leashed centripetal force. Only her arms and hands pry loose to claw and ascend in supplication.

A tour de force of performing, “Requiem” was dacnced with a majestic grandeur by Lo Man-fei. The jestic grandeur by Lo Man-fei. The handsome costume was designed by Lin Ching-Ju.

A modern troupe from Taiwan with an appetite for large themes.
The Program opened with “A wanderer’s Autumn Grief,” a savvy but long-winded piece by Helen Lai to an old Chinese song. According to program notes, Ms Lai used the many fans in the piece to capture the song’s nostalgic mood. The quartet seems intriguingly, to be a modernist’s comment on culturl tradition and its ramifications, as two men and two women respond to a fan in ways that ranged from intense longing to rage. That sense of past and present was embodied in the skittering, agonized performing of Wu Su-chun in the central role. Taurus Wah designed the subtly colored, flowing costumes.

Ms. Lo’s 1998 “Dark Side of the Moon,” which completed the programs, is set to music by Lin Huei-ling that mixes the old and new to vivid effect. The choreography does, too, in this adaptation of “Rashomon.” Each of the four versions of the story about a rape and a murder takes too long to unfold, however, making it hard to connect them. But the stylized look of the work was handsome, as were the costumes, designed by Yip Kam Tim. Zhng Xizo Xiong stood out as the tireless punk provocateur of the dance.

The three works were greeted with cheers by the audience. One man rose to his feet in homage to “Requiem,” crying “Stand up! Stand up!” to his fellow audience members as he applauded. But all three dances had a puzzling emotional cool or distance that could not be attributed to the physically and dramatically expressive dancers. They also included the sweet-faced Chen Shu-gi and the elegant Yeh Tai-chu, founders of the troupe with Ms. Lo and Ms. Wu. The evening’s lighting was by Lin Keh-hua and Chang Tsan-tao.

The festival, produced by Kaye Playhouse and Arts Promotion Asia, ends with performances tomorrow night and Sunday afternoon by the son Mu Ga-zen Dance Company from Korea at Kay Playhouse.