Sen Hea Ha dazzles with inimitable dances

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): Watching Sen Hea Ha dance is to get one step closer to attaining nirvana. If birth is little except a temporary separation from the whole, as the yogis put it, then indeed the best way to spend a lifetime is to look for that path which will lead back to where you once belonged.

A performance of Lux Aeterna by Ha is one such experience transporting all those into a temporary world of bliss who are trying to conquer duality that insists on dragging the soul sometimes to the right and at other times to the left.

Danced to the haunting voices of Gyorgy Ligeti's choir from the church, and clad in folds of gray and red silks, Ha's ethereal figure seems to surrender completely to the pure mind principle in an already charged atmosphere made even more effective by the special light effects of Hengki Riva'i.

Ha performed five other numbers, all in her inimitable style that is a beautiful blend of modern ballet, mime and ancient Korean dance movements, at Gedung Kesenian's International Festival 2000.

A graduate of the Arts Department of Kyungsung University and artiste with the Baegimsae Dance Company in Korea, Ha moved to the USA in 1993. Fascinated with the subject of dance ethnology and Korean American shamanism, Ha soaks her performances in spirituality.

With her head shaved clean and her body as if starved thin to resemble that of an ascetic, she appears on stage radiating plenty of energetic glimpses into the other world. The aura of her performance is further heightened by the breathtaking design of her costumes tailored mainly by herself and Yoon Mi Choi.

Her choice of music, which is a combination of Gregorian chants (Western sacred music of the Middle Ages) and the sound of Buddhists in search of nothing in dark and damp caves, only hastens the journey towards moksha. It is sheer delight even to watch her toe as it twitches and turns anyway she wants it to.

As goddess of mercy she is wrapped in pastel colors of satin. In the breathtaking piece entitled Incarnation, she invokes energy from space dressed in transparent, billowing pants and a top made from lemon green materials that look like muslin.

In Lineage she makes herself resemble Charlie Chaplin although she performs a piece from a Korean shamanistic ritual as if she were made of rubber. In this number a shaman has transformed himself into a general and arrives to honor the spirit of fallen heroes.

The idea is to pay homage to ancestors and to keep one's self rooted in the past even as the struggle is to flower in the present.

Appearing in traditional robes of white, Ha performs Resurrection as if she were a butterfly, symbolizing a woman's desire to liberate herself.

In the last number of the evening Ha is a witch, at times a good one and often a bad one, riding high on her broom between the twin realms of the imagination and the real world.

Apart from her solo items, Ha also presented some of the choreography that she has done with Javanese dancers.

The dreams and realities faced by women everywhere were staged by six Indonesians. While Ha concentrates mainly on fancy flights from the material world into the spiritual one in her solo performances, she has the dancing feet of her Javanese women planted firmly on this earth.

The dreams and realities experienced by women in the city of Solo were performed by earthy female survivors who sure knew how to laugh at themselves. Through not just dance and music but also using plenty of humor and drama, local dancers shared with the audience the secrets of how they cope with the modern world, forever clinging to hope in often hopeless situations.

In Beautiful Women, Ibu-Ibu, Ha joins her Javanese colleagues in a moving tribute on stage to all members of society, especially mothers.

The wait now is for the day when Ha will perform once again in Jakarta.