{"id":3804,"date":"2013-02-18T10:36:13","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T15:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=3804"},"modified":"2013-02-18T10:36:13","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T15:36:13","slug":"nai-ni-chen-year-of-the-serpent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/nai-ni-chen-year-of-the-serpent.htm","title":{"rendered":"Nai-Ni Chen – Year of the Serpent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Year of the Serpent<\/em>
\nNai-Ni Chen Dance Company<\/a>
\nVictoria Theater – New Jersey Center for the Performing Arts
\nSunday, February 10, 2013<\/p>\n

\"dragon_7\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’d been wanting to see the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company for years, but it wasn’t until last weekend that I finally made the trek out to Newark to see the company celebrate the Chinese New Year with their production Year of the Serpent<\/em>.\u00a0 The program was a wonderful mix of traditional Chinese dancing, music and opera combined with a new contemporary piece, Whirlwind<\/em>, which received its world premiere this year.\u00a0 The dancers moved seamlessly between the different dance styles.\u00a0 It was very generous and helpful of the company to have provided the audience with detailed descriptions of the history and inspiration for each dance, along with narratives about the peoples and customs of the different regions of China from where these dances come.<\/p>\n

The performance opened with a piece called Double Lions Welcoming Spring<\/em> which tells the story of trust built between young children and ferocious lions.\u00a0 The dance is intended as a prayer for peace and harmony in the coming year.\u00a0 Playful and often funny (such as when the lion forgets himself on stage and nibbles on his own foot, or throws in an extra cabriole before exiting the stage) the dance includes dazzling acrobatics and tumbling sequences.\u00a0 Each lion is played by two men who do an amazing job of making the beast’s back ripple in feline fashion, or making it rear back on its hind legs.\u00a0 The Chinese folk costumes and the design of the lion are so beautifully done.<\/p>\n

In Song of the Water Lily<\/em>, dancer Ying Shi embodies the beauty and purity of a young girl.\u00a0 She carries a fan ornamented with a lovely billowing scarf which resembles a flower petal.\u00a0 The lighting and music create the atmosphere of a lily pond, down to the sound of water droplets and bird songs spliced in with the traditional folk music.\u00a0 There is a wide sweep of movement, from luscious slow and controlled extensions and port des bras, to a rapid success of turns executed while spotting the floor.\u00a0 The dance is at once ornate and colorful as it is earthy and primal.<\/p>\n

Another traditional piece, arranged by Ms. Chen, was the rousing Coin Stick Dance<\/em>.\u00a0 Bamboo sticks filled with coins create a host of different rattling sounds as they are tapped against shoulders, hips and floor, or twirled like batons.\u00a0 The dance was presented as an ensemble piece, but had lovely partnering sections in which pairs of dancers tapped their sticks together.\u00a0 The piece was marked by pretty formations and nice footwork sequences.<\/p>\n

\"Greta_5_text\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0One of the highlights for me was seeing Ms. Chen’s earthy modern piece, Whirlwind<\/em>, inspired by her journey on the Silk Road.\u00a0 It opens with six dancers standing still on stage, very subtly swaying forward and backward on the breeze.\u00a0 In this section, and throughout the piece, Ms. Chen used groups moving in unison, save for one dancer.\u00a0 These formations seemed to embody the phenomenon of the whirlwind, which she described in the program as coming from different directions.\u00a0 In the opening section, the dancers’ mostly remain in their spots, but they execute beautiful adagio movement with the upper body and the plie, creating the atmospheres of a coming storm.\u00a0 As the dance builds, influences of various cultures can be appear.\u00a0 The energy of the wind can be felt in contractions and sighing movement.\u00a0 I loved the section danced by the men, locked onto one another’s arms in a circle and swaying together in a way that seemed ancient and ritualistic.\u00a0 Great original movement in this dance and beautiful artistic execution by the dancers.<\/p>\n

\"Whirlwind_7_text\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Min Zhou shone in the traditional Peacock Dance<\/em> from her charming staccato birdlike gestures, shuddering shoulders and expressive movement of the upper body, to her lovely transitions into slow and controlled adagio phrases.\u00a0 She held her arm above her head, her hand shaped like the head of a peacock, her floor length skirt draped to resemble its plumage.<\/p>\n

\"Group_7_text\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0The program closed with Chen’s traditional piece, Festival<\/em>, a spectacle of cartwheels, barrel turns, colorful ribbons, and flags, complete with a dragon dance in which the dragon takes a spin around the audience.\u00a0 The piece was great fun and a fitting close to a beautiful program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Year of the Serpent Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company Victoria Theater – New Jersey Center for the Performing Arts Sunday, February 10, 2013 I’d been wanting to see the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company for years, but it wasn’t until last weekend … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20],"tags":[449,446,445,448,447],"class_list":["post-3804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-karen","tag-chinese-dancing","tag-chinese-new-year","tag-nai-ni-chen","tag-whirlwind","tag-year-of-the-serpent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3804"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4186,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3804\/revisions\/4186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}