Takeya's group shows its elegance

By Lenah Susianty

JAKARTA (JP): A woman with a thickly powdered face wearing a long black gown, holding a vase of red flowers and pulling a rope and wooden box enters the stage slowly. She is gigantic because she is carried on the shoulders by a bizarre man whose pale-white face is hidden under the woman's gown.

The vague sound of an accordion accompanies the woman's entrance. She makes some gestures with her hands which are still holding the vase. Her mask-like face does not express anything but emptiness. Another tall woman whose face is similar to the first woman comes on and the face of a man whose tongue sticks out appears from under the woman's robe. This couple also brings a wooden box. All of them dance in accordance to the music, elegantly and coldly while they pull the boxes. A man carrying a wooden box on his head steps onto the stage. He starts dancing in front of one side of the box as if he is dancing with his mirror image.

Later, they all get into the boxes. The audience, circling the stage, cannot see their faces. They see only hands and legs which are kicked and forming strong but lovely movements.

It was On boxes, one of the dances presented by Japan's Keiko Takeya Contemporary Dance Company, in cooperation with the Asian Contemporary Arts Workshop, in its one-night performance called Dong Feng dance or East Wind dance at Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center.

The 18 dancers of the Takeya's group, including Takeya herself, featured 11 dances choreographed jointly by Teru Goi, a Japanese Butoh dancer who always emphasizes body and soul cultivation, Naraphong Charassri, a Thai dancer who specializes in western post-modern dance techniques of ballet and theater, and Takeya who contributed natural Asian movements using prominent Marta Graham techniques.

The eleven dances, accompanied by Gregorian chants to traditional Japanese shamisen (played by Yumiko Matsubara). Indonesian drums and flute composed by I Wayan Sadra of Bali offered an intense performance by combining all artistic aspects such as pantomime, theater and music.

"The creation of these dances is based on our different backgrounds. But by cooperating like this I hope we can launch a new Asian dance style," said Takeya, who was once a member of Martha Graham Company and established her own dance company in 1983.

Thai and Indonesian artists participate through the Asian Contemporary Arts Workshop which is aimed at exposing differences among Asians and simultaneously in raising understanding about these differences.

Japanese spirit

Elegance, softness and cold are what the Japanese spirit contribute to the dances.

"It is time to restrain wild movements and to present calm and elegant movements to reveal the purity of life," Takeya said.

There is no hi-tech dance technique offered, no complexity. Takeya, Goi and Charassri offer more freedom in expressing oneself through natural, gentle and supple gestures which require all parts of the body to speak. The whole body, from the hair to the tip of the toe, all participated to give unity and perfection to the theme of the dances -- life.

The Japanese habit of turning pain into something lovely, to quote Pico Iyer's statement of his Japanese experience memoir The Lady and the monk, also has its place in translating the theme of life into those dances.

On Boxes, for example, which clearly symbolizes people in modern time living in box houses, rides box vehicles, categorized in boxes ( a box with rich people, another box with poor ones, etc.) and death in a box as well, does not only show sadness and bitterness of life per se, but more the beauty of sadness. The black gown, black decor and dim lighting was touched with the beauty of the dance's movements.

Night party, which presented women in glossy red gowns and men in black, contrasted happiness and sadness in life. In one moment, the dancers laughed and danced lively, in another moment they cried and danced coldly. They share love and happiness together with sadness and grief simultaneously. It is noted that the Japanese word for love and its word for grief are homonyms.

The theme is more accentuated by the dances which reflect the closeness of the choreographers to nature such as Wind belt, Sky's breath, Stone dream, The Beginning of the wind and animals.

In Japan, its very character for 'nature' could be read as 'self-seeing'. Nature is consequently another way to speak about life.

Through the East Wind dances, the audience is faced with the Japanese way of seeing life, Japanese delight in sadness and Japanese grief in showing happiness. The path to the arena has been decorated in a Japanese way by installing some bamboo posts carrying flickering torches as if to prepare them for arriving in Kawabata's snowy country.

A new Asian style, as expected by Takeya, has indeed taken form, but its soul is still very Japanese.