Song of Pensive Beholding: A Motionless Journey to Great Awakening
Legend Lin Dance Theatre restaged Song of Pensive Beholding, urging its audience to reflect on themselves, and the world around them.
Opening scene of Song of Pensive Beholding in which a dancer is seen collecting pebbles
Courtesy of Legend Lin Dance Theatre
TAIPEI , Taiwan— In July, Legend Lin Dance Theatre staged Intimate Encounters (觸身·實境) at the Experimental Theatre, and took its spectators behind the scene to see how a lead actor and actress prepare for their characters. This ascetic journey, which lasted for 2.5 hours, was a prelude to the troupe’s long-awaited Song of Pensive Beholding (觀) that was restaged in August at the National Theatre Hall in Taipei.
Following Miroirs de Vie and Hymne aux Fleurs qui Passent, Song of Pensive Beholding, first staged in 2009, is part of the troupe’s trilogy in tribute to Heaven, Earth and Man. Song of Pensive Beholding recounts the story of a tribal myth, and has been described as “a dialogue with the Mother Earth” that prompts its spectators to reflect on the harm that humanity has done to nature.
Since its founding in 1995, Legend Lin Dance Theatre has continued to provide local population with a fresh perspective on their homeland, but also invited audience from around the world to learn about Taiwan, culture to nature.
Lin Li-Chen, Artistic Director of the Legend Lin Dance Theatre, excels at expressing her connection with the land of Taiwan through her one-of-a-kind choreography. The celebrated six-word motto — settle, calm, relax, ground, slow, and power — lies at the heart of its philosophy, emerging from it is a unique type of dance that is praised for its slow, and almost motionless, movement imbued with ethereal and ritualistic qualities.
On the stage, extremely long banners hanging from the ceiling accentuate a piece of white silk — a symbol of the river where the story is set — placed in the middle. As soon as the light goes out, nearly 1,500 spectators in the theatre turn the space that was once full of chattering to total silence until, a few minutes later, two drummers come into sight and seat themselves on either side of the stage; the rhythmical musical accompaniment, like our heart beats, becomes the pulse of the performance that is about to unfold.
Opening scene of Song of Pensive Beholding
Courtesy of Legend Lin Dance Theatre
Song of Pensive Beholding begins with a dancer who, holding onto what looks like a bowl made of coconut-shell in her left hand, steadily moves forward in bear-crawl fashion from the rear-end of the stage. As she moves on the silky white fabric, she would pick up — one after another — the dark-coloured pebbles that have been placed along the river. The repetition of her movement creates a certain rhythm that is akin to the sound of a ticking clock played in slow motion.
When she finally reaches the front of the stage, she places down what she’s collected near an installation found at the forestage: a lit candle placed atop a pool of pebbles encircled by bouquets of hay laid out in a concentric circle, diffusing a warm, earthy and inviting scent in the air.
Song of Pensive Beholding is inspired by tribal myth; its story is set at a river, home to a mysterious eagle race since time immemorial. The two eagle brothers vowed to protect their mother river until, one day, the vow was broken: the river of life is constantly changing, but so are desires. Samo, one of the eagle brothers, meets White Bird, the river spirit, and falls in love.
White Bird makes her debut on stage
Courtesy of Legend Lin Dance Theatre
When White Bird makes her debut on stage, she’s accompanied by an entourage of dancers whose white-powdered body is seen in striking contrast with their black costumes. The antique silver ornament worn on White Bird’s forehead, coupled with intricate embroidery work on her costumes, differentiates the lead actress from her attendants.
The encounter of Samo and White Bird marks the peak of an aesthetic experience that audience has all been waiting for. When the two meet at the centre of the stage, Samo and White Bird twist their body in a way that makes them seem as if intertwined, yet barely touching each other. This creates a tension that is heightened by an unspoken magnetic attraction, and desires unfulfilled.
After the moment of their “first touch”, reminiscent of that seen in Michelangelo’s celebrated fresco, The Creation of Adam, in which the God is seen outreaching his arm to transmit the spark of life from his finger tip into that of Adam, White Bird’s hands immediately start to shake in a hysterical manner, as if overwhelmed by passion.
Who would’ve thought this amorous encounter between White Bird and Samo would lead to bloodshed? Samo gets into a fierce brotherly battle pronounced by accelerated drum rolls and the brothers’ dreadful screams. Shamanistic chanting in the background gives it a ritualistic dimension that, at some point, put me into trance. Before I knew it, the battle ends with Samo falling onto the ground, covered by a large piece of fabric — nearly the size of the stage — in gory red, engulfing the whole stage.
The romantic encounter of White Bird and Samo
Courtesy of Legend Lin Dance Theatre
Akin to the use of blank space in Chinese ink painting, the troupe’s motionless choreography, as well as the lack of a defined narrative, leaves room for imagination to take flight, allowing spectators to weave in their own narrative. The dancers’ ethnic-inspired costumes, coupled with the minimal stage set, adds to the mysterious and timeless dimension of the myth that came to inspire this œuvre d’art.
We know that the performance is coming to an end when the stage has been set like the opening scene, as if cosmic order has come in after the chaotic Big Bang. Moving slowly from the rear-end of the stage, a dancer places down the black-coloured pebble, one after another, to form the same row of pebbles that was once present. Like a replay of the opening scene, it seems that this nearly three-hour performance that we have witnessed before our eyes is all but an illusion.
While lost in my own mind, all the dancers return to the stage, each holding a candle in their palms if making an offering. They face towards the audience, as if reaffirming our assumption, once again, that time and space is an illusion. In the meantime, recitation of the Heart Sutra, a popular text from Buddhist traditions, loops in the background:
“…in emptiness no form, no feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no colour, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind…”
The very word that the Heart Sutra begins with, “Guan”, also happens to be the Chinese title for Song of Pensive Beholding. In the Buddhist context, “Guan”, or Vipassanā in Sanskrit, can be translated as “insight” or “clear-seeing”.
Lin Li-Chen places a bundle of hay on the stage during curtain call
As pointed out by playwright William Inge, theatre is a reflection of life. While watching the landscape onstage metamorphose from one scene to another, spectators also get to reflect on how fluctuating the rhythm of life is.
Having acknowledged the principal truth that everything in life is impermanent, Legend Lin Dance Theatre breeds poetry and recites them through dancer’s muscular strength, power and endurance. Like a polished mirror, Song of Pensive Beholding prompts us to look within ourselves, witnessing the nuance of our mind, thoughts, feelings and body sensations.
Through Song of Pensive Beholding, audience is taken on a slow-motion journey to awakening — a state that could take up to multiple lifetimes, if not less, to attain. Though the journey has ended after the curtain call, most of us are left to wander in our wild fantasy (one that differentiates us layman from the awakened one): if only we could understand the secrets of life.
Legend Lin Dance Theatre’s Song of Pensive Beholding was restaged at the National Theatre Hall in Taipei city on August 19, 20 & 21, and will tour to the National Taichung Theatre on October 15 & 16.