Monks and Emptylanders dance at festival

New Zealand International Arts Festival

Sutra, A Journey Through Faith & Imagination
Sadlers Wells and the Shaolin Monks
St James Theatre
Until March 6

Mytland,
Footnote Dance
Soundings Theatre, Te Papa
Until March 1

Most dancers, whether they are classical or contemporary have a certain repertoire of steps, poses and movements. These are what they use in their creative roles and are distinct from their everyday way of moving and engaging.

The Shaolin monks in “Sutra” however make use of the moves of everyday life. Their performances are an extension of their calling as traditional warrior monks with an emphasise on the learning and perfection of martial arts.

While they no longer use their martial arts skills for combat the moves they have perfected become ideal source material for contemporary dance.

The Flemish / Moroccan dancer and choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has seen the possibilities of turning the martial arts skills of the monks into a dramatic piece of contemporary dance which allows him to illuminate the life of the monks and provide a metaphor for the spread of cultural ideas.

The group of dancers have performed at over eighty venues in the past three years spending four five weeks on the road at any one time before returning to their monastery in China.

The work combines seventeen dancers with seventeen large wooden plinths which are an integral part of the dance drama. They stand for various stages of our lives; coffins, storage units, a maze, a set of skyscrapers, a Stonehenge as well as providing a sense of the unknown like the basalt totem from "2001 A Space Odyssey”.

The dancers perform a variety of precisely timed routines some of which have all the brilliance and bravura of a Broadway musical or one of the Cirque style acts. They cavort between, on, over and with the wooden plinths which take on a life of their own.

This minimalist and clever interplay between dancers and their props provides a sense of ritual with repeated routines and carefully arranged and rearranged plinths.

At times they are carefully measured, delicate and slow while at other timers they are frenetic and dramatic. As the sequences develop, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is seen to be something of a pupil trying to learn and understand the monk’s practice. He is Everyman or Mr. European attempting to understand the skills of the monks and their approach to life.

The way they perform with references to their past ands present culture has similarities to the way that Maori have created contemporary haka routines such as “Ihi Frenzy”

For much of the first part of the work Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui sits to one side with a small model of the plinths which he rearranges as the dancers rearrange the full size ones. In this, he seems to acting not just as the director but as some omnipotent presence, directing their lives.

The music by Szymon Brzoska is played on Western style instruments and while essentially contemporary European in style it is flecked through with hints of medieval, gypsy, and Asian themes.

Another of the dance / theatre works being performed is the New Zealand piece “Mtyland” (Empty Land / Mighty Land) which has some similarities to “Sutra” with various acts taking there names from the Tao of War. It is also a work which seeks to understand the nature of the world.

The performers in “Mtyland” speak occasionally but whether they are making sense is another matter. As a young woman sitting close by remarked “They look like a bunch of mental health patients.”

Many of the sequences could be straight out of Becket and one of the opening sequences is reminiscent of a Vladimir and Estragon interchange. The work is littered with sayings and aphorisms, their meaningless slowly building into a controlled Chaos of ideas just as the random dances begins to take on a sense of order.

The dancers are all incredibly athletic, many of their amazing leaps seem to be frozen in time and their poses are eloquent expressions of emotions. There is a great deal of dancing focussed around action and reaction, movement and rest, silence and cacophony.