Long, bright, multicolored scarves, held by members of the Clouds Dance Theatre, floated through the air on the stage of Salomon 101 Tuesday night. The Clouds Dance Theatre is a Taiwanese and Chinese folk dance troupe whose dances convey themes in Taiwanese culture, predominantly those pertaining to the activities of women.
The show, coordinated by Eva Wu '06, Brown Taiwan Society communications chair, was the closing event of the Taiwanese Culture Festival. Each of the eight dances was prefaced by a description of the theme it sought to convey, read first in Mandarin and then in English translation by Will Leung '05.
The first dance, "Shimmering Fans," was performed by all 10 of the troupe's female dancers, clad in matching vibrant fuschia and yellow dresses. It began with the women hidden behind large, pale-blue sheets. These they later tied to their dresses, creating waves of fabric that surrounded them as they shuffled across the stage. "Shimmering Fans," like most of the group's dances, seemed to focus more on the coordinated, patterned movements of the group as an aesthetic whole rather than on emphasizing the talent of any individual dancer.
One of the show's two solo performances, titled "Eighteen-year-old girl is a like a flower," was described by Leung as depicting a Hakka girl who is "like a bud waiting to flower, sweetly refreshing, vivid, delightful and adorable." The dancer, with her hair in pigtails that emphasized her youthful demeanor, used energized yet controlled movements. The fan in her hand served a dual purpose - she alternated between sniffing it like the flower she is meant to resemble and using it to coyly cover her face.
The show's last and most memorable performance, "Yame Kume," depicted "the women of the Dahwu tribe shak(ing) their beautiful long hair in a song-filled ceremony that celebrates an abundant harvest," Leung said. The performance included a surprise entrance - that of the troupe's 11th member: a male dancer clad in a revealing loincloth and carrying two large, whisk-like props, which he rattled in the air and banged against the floor.
Throughout the performance, the female dancers hit rocks together, stomped their feet and clapped their hands, adding to the beat established by the male dancers' whisks.
After exiting the stage once, the male dancer returned carrying a spear and a glowing torch, both of which he managed to hold onto even while performing a series of impressive, one-handed cartwheels. The show ended dramatically when the dancer plunged his spear towards the stage floor as if into the body of a hunted animal.
Lance Lim '04, who said "Yame Kume" was his favorite dance, said he liked the show because it exposed him, a non-Taiwanese student, to another Asian culture.
The show's strongest moments were those emphasizing the graceful visual and spatial composition of dancers on stage rather than the reenactment of Taiwanese women's daily activities. In "Mother," the two female dancers held a woven hat and platter, which they depicted as containing everything from chicken feed and dirty laundry to a small child.
Laurel Foglia '07 said she enjoyed the performances, calling them "compositionally beautiful, colorful and expressive."
The Clouds Dance Theatre came to Brown as part of its New England Campuses Tour, which also includes performances at Columbia University and Smith College.
