fbpx Shen Wei's Lifts | HowlRound Theatre Commons

Shen Wei's Lifts

A Unique Approach to Dance

One is likely to be familiar with some work of the Chinese-born American choreographer Shen Wei without knowing it: it was Wei who created the spectacular opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. A self-described director and visual artist, and resident of New York, Shen Wei's art grows from commitments to intercultural and interdisciplinary practice that are likely to be familiar in small communities of theater artists, even as the breadth of the Olympic spectacle dazzles quite beyond the threat of name recognition. There is a related puzzle at the heart of Shen Wei's art, a syncretism not only of East and West, but of mass culture and what might be termed 'high' culture. One way of teasing out this sociological detail is by looking carefully at the dance, and noting the peculiar attention that Wei seems to give to the action of groups, a quality both aesthetically forward-thinking and well-suited to the grandest diplomatic spectacles, like the Olympics. I noted this quality, the gesture of groups, in two pieces, The Rite of Spring and Collective Measures seen recently at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

 

There is a related puzzle at the heart of Shen Wei's art, a syncretism not only of East and West, but of mass culture and what might be termed 'high' culture.

 

The effect of the dance is cumulative and instantaneous, and by virtue of both qualities seems to escape any progressive or unfolding sense of time. Once involved with a piece—and we do feel ourselves involved—the whole weight of its form tends to outweigh the particular journey of any one of the dancers, or any one sense of narrative whatever. Wei's dance has its own structure that depends on different foundations, and it is relentless: it should not be imagined as a phenomenon expressed from the dancers' psychology, but as a separate and achieved form, to be glimpsed hovering above and through the performers.

This might mean recourse to pastiche for the critic, if not the artist, who is an original and eschews it. From outside inspiration, one might try to build a scaffold of convenient references around Wei, some system of influence including Chinese opera, martial arts, Greek drama, Jackson Pollock, and video art of the nineties. True, this would supply an index of the obvious ghosts, but would ignore the shadow references to Nijinsky and Balanchine, with whom Wei must be in conversation. A good conversationalist, he worries a broad theme—large and perhaps unnameable unless we call it "dance"—with his own terms and sense of argument. The big names will have this common; what Shen Wei has to say with them is colored by his specific perspective, and only secondarily by the laundry list of references. If history is like conversation, his voice pricks the sensible ear with more than an accent. We should be interested in what he has to say.

 

The lift is perhaps the most unavoidable narrative and romantic element in academic dance, even when it comes up in a very abstract piece. The lift speaks of a pair's romantic isolation regardless of dancers' gender, or of emotional specificity in the plot if it is present—it is romantic in the broad sense even when accomplished among a group of others, and even when it is meant to denote violence or psychic conflict.

 

On a fall night, Wei was present in North Adams, Massachusetts in a state-of-the-art black box situated near a row of trees suspended upside down. This is, of course, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, where halogen lights and Sol LeWitt murals blaze out of wide old windows. Champagne and scotch is poured in these polished post-industrial lobbies long after the surrounding city closes, and brick is poshly exposed on the palatial reclaimed factory walls. Little towns slept around this other cosmopolitan world, along the treacherous hairpins of Route 2, while trees changed color in light rain. It was October, and a crowd streamed in to watch The Rite of Spring.

The crowd at the door is important to my memory of the evening, perhaps because crowds and their behavior are important to Shen Wei. The defining characteristics of his dance, along with the alternative time-sense already mentioned, might include a decentralized plane of focus where principal dancers cannot be located, for they do not exist, among the company of fifteen. Not only does interest shift too quickly to call any of the dancers principal, the astonishing moments draw attention to the group more than the individual, which is a feat in itself if properly considered: we tend to be preoccupied with the individual. The qualities Wei emphasizes treat the company as the most important unit of expressive force instead—including spatial relationship, floor pattern, repetition, and the slow evolution of sequences. That Wei makes these elements (which are typically the quieter ones) passionately exciting, even breathtaking, is his privilege as an artist.

dancers on stage
Shen Wei's Rite of Spring

Perhaps there are more and more recent precedents for this kind of work than I am aware of. For me, however, the dominant sense in Wei is a remarkably convincing echo of the Greek chorus, with a sense of the human group as a more powerful entity than the human individual. If we were to trace this to aesthetics, we might say that Shen Wei's dance is post-humanist. A dominant characteristic, across both The Rite of Spring and Collective Measures as performed at Mass MoCA, was the absence of lifts.

The lift is perhaps the most unavoidable narrative and romantic element in academic dance, even when it comes up in a very abstract piece. The lift speaks of a pair's romantic isolation regardless of dancers' gender, or of emotional specificity in the plot if it is present—it is romantic in the broad sense even when accomplished among a group of others, and even when it is meant to denote violence or psychic conflict.

Shen Wei, as I say, shies from lifts. His company performs feats of flocking, repetitious gestures that are self-contained within a small personal sphere, the claiming of levels (standing, sitting, lying) and minute shifts of the spinal columns that give the effect of watching a landscape move, and are just as beautiful. With focus on such elements, which sound merely supportive when listed, the dance is phenomenally exciting, even raw. Yet there is one sequence that focuses on lifts, and I will conclude my glimpse at Wei by describing it in detail. Beyond the significance gleaned from this, I urge you to see Shen Wei's choreography and think about it for yourself: it is important for anybody who wishes to think critically about bodies in space, and a very useful modern reference for anybody thinking about the role of the chorus in ancient tragedy, particularly if they are seeking an eerily effective example.

The stage is cordoned off by light, with a sharp square illuminated downstage center. Women are there, their hands and feet on the floor, legs tending straight, moving about as if they are picking ants or gold out of cracks in the stage, to eat or to horde. Anyway, they seem to be preoccupied with the floor for something like survival, and move with the kind of intention this produces, somewhere between animal and machine. They do not resemble imaginary characters; they resemble somewhat a city seen at a distance.

A man enters. He is upright, flat-footed, with focus straight ahead. He comes behind one of the women, and lifts her at the hips where she is folded. The lift is barely a lift. It looks slightly like a sexual pose aborted very early, and has the function of moving the woman from one small area of focus on the floor to another, adjacent area. Another man enters the space, and the gestural life of the men develops: motions of exchange and counting with the hands emerge, and suggest commerce. The men move quite deliberately, the women still keep steady pace with their action. The men begin to lift them higher into the air, upsetting their relation to the floor so that they look out into the world, their arms confused and batting at disorientation like a beetle does when lifted off the ground.

More men, more exchange, the small square of light expands. The women begin to grab at the men, as if scaling their bodies, asking to be lifted and moved. There is more space, and they can be moved further. With volition from the women, the shapes gain interest: the men wish to carry the women, the women wish for air. Soon they are climbing to shoulder level, and higher, on men's bodies. Legs are extended, bodies are curved into air, I half recognize an echo of Giselle. The time with the floor has become perfunctory: they have invented lift, and its romantic variations take precedence. The speed increases. The couples begin to move while lifting. Eventually they run from the stage, in the familiar shapes of lovers in ballet. We have seen the lift, evolved.

Bookmark this page

Log in to add a bookmark

Comments

0
Add Comment

The article is just the start of the conversation—we want to know what you think about this subject, too! HowlRound is a space for knowledge-sharing, and we welcome spirited, thoughtful, and on-topic dialogue. Find our full comments policy here

Newest First