Review: Minh Tran beautifully melds Asian, Western aesthetics

Posted: April 23, 2007 - 4:11 pm

By Anne Herman

Daily News correspondent

Minh Tran and Company

Minh Tran is a chameleon choreographer. One dance is full of barely contained fury, while the next is calm and contemplative. This dance is infused with an urban edginess, and that one echoes the serenity of Asian spirituality.

These meetings of peace and anger, of calm and storm, colored Tran’s works in Alaska Dance Theatre’s aptly named “Intersections” concert Saturday in the Discovery Theatre. The three works he created for his Portland, Ore.-based Minh Tran and Company performers and ADT dancers carried his personal blend of Western and Asian aesthetics.

Tran’s works seemed to echo his life experiences. They were translations of feelings, memories, passions and events from his years as a Vietnamese refugee fleeing Communism and his embrace of Buddhism’s serenity that has anchored his countrymen for centuries.

“Nocturnal Path” was the most Asian of Tran’s works, with its melding of Vietnamese and Thai folk dance with postmodern dance. Its four sections seemed to reflect the Buddhist philosophy of religion as a way of living, a path on life’s journey. The opening section, “Offering,” was the most evocative and ritualistic part of the 45-minute work.

Dancers in saffron and wine-colored tunics moved across the dimly lit stage with a formal grace that gave each weight shift and gesture its own mindfulness.

They proceeded at a slow pace, their movements casting shadows on the walls, as they gathered around a circle of candles in front of a golden bowl. Hands dipped at the wrist, feet flexed and knees bent deeply in ritual actions that flowed through the performers. The dancers seemed to invite quiet contemplation here, a slowing down of breath, mind, heart and body, to be fully aware of movement in the making.

In contrast, the middle sections, “Chaos” and “Emptiness,” were franticly scattered as the dancers tangled themselves in a cat’s cradle of white ropes. The final section, “Becoming,” brought the work full circle with a return to the grace of traditional Asian dance.

The piece stumbled a bit here as Tran and a woman moved through lifts and balances that were awkwardly performed at their slow-motion pace. But the ensemble, now dressed in pure white, finished the work with the Asian gentility that marked this journey of mind and body.

The Anchorage Concert Chorus lent depth and flesh to Tran’s simple “Descending,” which he re-staged for his own dancers and several ADT performers. Voices rose above and flowed around the dancers, especially in the middle section. Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, arranged as a choral “Agnus Dei” here, gave words to the solemnity of dancers who never quite left the ground as they rolled, arced and curved in shapes reflected in the shimmering floor.

The clash of postmodern dance and ancient Asian rituals was most apparent in Tran’s “Furious Angels,” which he had presented with ADT earlier this year.

Here, two dance philosophies confronted each other: the slow, thoughtful measure of traditional Asian dance and the hell-bent, all-or-nothing drive of contemporary dance. Angular movements slashed at corkscrewing leaps and aerial turns. Dancers moved in slow-motion tai-chi sequences through the kinetic storm around them.

“Furious Angels” was perhaps the most intriguing of Tran’s works in the concert. It condensed the emotions and movements of both “Descending” and “Nocturnal Path” into a dance that celebrated passion and spirituality, discipline and exuberance in a breathtaking manner.

It was a dance worthy of the talents of the ADT company and made the “Intersections” concert yet another artistic success this season.

Anne Herman holds a masters degree in dance and has been a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts.