The Hong Kong Arts Festival wrapped its tenth Asia Pacific Dance Platform on the weekend of Mar. 16 with a powerful double bill of male duos. Each work set a pair of young men adrift in a strange world framed by unsettling, quickly shifting realities.
Eshed Avraham and Ofir Yudilevitch in Yudilevitch’s GRAVITAS (Photo: Vojtěch Brtnický)
Eshed Avraham and Ofir Yudilevitch put a friendship quite literally on an unstable footing in Israeli choreographer Yudilevitch’s Gravitas, performed on an inflated gymnastic mat. In this whimsical rebellion against hard surfaces, the men hurtle through the air and rebound spectacularly off the mat. They attempt to knock each other out of headstands. They tackle each other to reclaim a spot on the mat. They stake a perimeter on the mat in a powerful whirligig of tumbling turns and rebounding twists. And they compete to land the most awesome back flips.
Ironically, the choreographer rejects both the solemnity of manner and the Newtonian force associated with ‘gravitas.’ Overt drama is kept to a minimum, and impishness pervades the daredevil power plays and even the most fraught episode, in which Avraham hops onto Yudilevitch’s ribcage and maneuvers to stay erect while Yudilevitch rolls around slowly on the mat.
More than a display of acrobatics, Gravitas is the negotiating of an alliance between two men who find themselves stuck in the same boat, in a hazardous crossing epitomized by the wobbly surface, the bright blue sea suggested by the color of the mat. They could be fellow seafarers, or refugees.
The piece begins with the inflation of the mat and ends with its deflation; we are left to imagine whether the boat sank, or whether our intrepid young men made it to dry land.
Mission successful or failed, they remain confidantes. That is underscored during a break in the action, in which, breathing heavily, they sprawl companionably on top of each other.
Aaron Lim and Erak Mith in Nick Power’s BETWEEN TINY CITIES (Photo: Thoeun Veassna)
In Australian choreographer Nick Power’s Between Tiny Cities, the relationship between street dancers Erak Mith, from Phnom Penh, and Aaron Lim, from Darwin, is more nebulous. They suddenly emerge from the hundred-odd observers standing in a tight circle in the Kwai Tsing Theatre’s Black Box – as if representing factions in the audience – to face off in a cross-cultural twist on the traditional b-boy battle.
It’s not strictly a battle, though, for they’re not just showing off their best moves. And rather than claiming the center of the circle, as b-boys do, they often remain at the periphery, eyeing each other warily and sending twitchy signals – like a Morse code between different species of migratory bird reconnoitering the competition in a stopover habitat. They seem to be assessing how much they can trust the other. One of them will spin, momentarily taking his eyes off the other. To these mild taunts, the other responds in kind, as we sense a growing escalation. They duck, stretch and weave, as if darting from bunker to bunker, dodging imaginary bullets in hostile territory. Or in an elaborate feint to convince the other that there is more than one of them, that they are backed by a small army.
Once they feel confident enough to approach, both erupt in power moves like windmills and flares. While these are big and virtuosic, no less striking are the intricate intertwining of hands, feathery gestures of fingers, and alternately bold and delicate movements from Khmer dance and contact improv. A mesmerizing sequence has them leaning into each other, forearms pressed against forearms, glistening with sweat, as they execute a kind of slow tango. Their arm patterns evolve in a geometry that binds them together but that also reinforces a barrier between them.
At one point, Lim takes a break and lies down. Mith won’t have it, though, and starts chanting a Cambodian song that exhorts children to not be lazy, to stand up straight, and so on. Wiry and explosive, he bugs Lim like a mosquito. The taller, stockier Lim flings him off, good-naturedly, but yields to Mith’s harangue, performing a spiky solo to the rhythm and cadences of Mith’s voice.
Sound designer Jack Prest has crafted a mercurial soundtrack that evokes shimmering gongs, splintering bamboo, the thundering of rain drums, the buzzing of insects, the pinging of underwater sonar. Lighting designer Bosco Shaw has eloquently deepened the sense of mystery.
As light and music fade on this enchanted circle, we continue to hear rhythmic footfalls, bodies slamming into the floor, breaths sharply expelled – as if to declare that dance as entente will persist, even in times of peril. International alliances, like the one that brought a Cambodian crew and an Australian crew together, will survive. Somehow.
Watch Between Tiny Cities on Vimeo (click on the blue button):
