THE STRAITS TIMES – Monday, August 24 2009 Page C8
Life! -Silence speaks volumes
Kuik Swee Boon’s first full-length work is one of skill and ambition
Review dance – Silence, T.H.E Dance Company, Esplanade Theatre Last Saturday
Tara Tan
It was a bleak, poignant and sprawling landscape of the human condition that choreographer Kwik Swee Boon revealed in Silence, his first full-length work with his one-tear ole dance troupe, T.H.E Dance Company.
First staged in 2007, the dark, brooding 70-minute was set to the music of progressive rock band Sigur Ros and composer Phillip Glass.
Silence was an expansive experience about the chaotic, terror-filled world we live in The 12 dancers, who included some of the strongest young dancers in Singapore, told a tale of isolation. They stood stock-still or tunneled across the stage, desperate, desolate and alone.
With the broad sweeping stokes and ferocious spins, Kuik’s choreography was intricate and intimate, a spiraling force of unspeakable pain and loneliness.
Especially evocative was with his duet with Luisa Maria Arias, a principle dancer with the reknowed Spanish dance company Compania Nacional de Danza.
Achingly beautiful, the two bodies curved around each other in a delicate pas de deux, which mused on a love lost. Protective one moment, but abandoning each other the next, they were two spiders in a dance of death, weaving a tangled web.
Strands of influence from European contemporary dance masters such as Jiri Kylian and Nacho Duato were heavily present in his work, which was created after Kuik’s five years at the Compania Nacional de Danza, where he performed their works.
He has picked up deft skills from the master choreographers, and it would be interesting to keep and eye on the expansion of his rich and deep dance language.
Silence also featured some of the best and promising dancers here. Especially noteworthy was Zhuo Zihao, who commanded a huge presence on stage. His feral energy was brutal and tender all at once, and both his control and abandon of control were mesmerizing.
Kuik, with his deft, emotive and precise movements , was poetry in motion. He has an unforgettable stage presence, and his body filled with longing one moment, and exerting the cold strength of poer the next.
The evening deepened into a gritty, seedy world, which spoke of mutual violence and desperation. It told of those who were left behind, abandoned and in shock, while life went on.
Mature and complex, Silence was a delicate, intimate experience which was magnified in the carernous hall of the Esplanade Theatre.
However, there were quibbles with the piece. For one, the sound design was questionable, with severable intrusions and abrupt transitions which marred the evening slightly.
A 70-minute-long piece was also quite hard to sustain. While the stamina to develop and grapple with a long work was admirable, perhaps braking it up or injecting new momentum into intermitment parts of the work could have aided it along.
There was, however, no question about the ambition behind this work. Apart from marking a milestone in the local dance scene by being only the second Singapore contemporary dance troupe to grace the Esplanade Theatre stage, the group also ventured into an expansive artistic exploration of the human soul.
The one- night performance was a proud moment for the local dance scene, one witnessed by about 1,500 people, who filled most of the 2,000- seat theatre.
It must surely be a sign that the love for dance here is alive and kicking.