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| Photo by John Gerbetz |
Art and circus meet with a cosmic clash in Dennis Nahat's eye-catching and flamboyant "Yulan," which had its U.S. premiere at the California Theatre in San Jose on Thursday night.
Performed by some four dozen members of the venerable Dalian Acrobatic Troupe from China, "Yulan" is the first of two cross-Pacific collaborations that Nahat's new production company, Theatre Ventures International, and United Star Performing Arts Corp. will host in San Jose this year. In December, the Dalian troupe will return with Nahat's "Terracotta Prince," and if it's anything like this cirque nouveau spectacular, it will be worth a holiday outing.
Nahat directs "Yulan" and shares choreographic credits with Song Xiaoxue and Zhang Hongfei, but the real reasons to see the show are the jaw-dropping performers, who seem to defy laws of physics and anatomy at every turn.
A theme of creation and destruction on the path to perfection runs throughout the night, but mainly that's a pretext for showing off impressive acrobatic skills. Ultimately, it's best not to strain too hard to fit a narrative to the 12 scenes, which take us from galaxy formation to frozen tundras and bubbling springs to the flowering of the yulan, or magnolia, of the title.
Why the spinning diabolo act in the Metamorphosis scene? What is the thorny macrophage creature meant to represent? Or the roller-skating butterflies throwing four-winged boomerangs? You should just stop asking questions, because even if in one minute you're thinking how cheese-ball all this is, in the next moment you'll be slack-jawed with amazement at the remarkable Tang Xuezhi spinning in tight orbits inside a Cyr wheel or Tong Jia and Wang Qiaoling balanced delicately in a gut-crunching planche from aerial silks.
Xie Yuxi's fluid lighting design admirably integrates with Xu Zeng's wild costumes and the monumental, spacey video projections by Jin Xin and Zhao Yu, while the original score by Paul Chihara, former composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Ballet, runs between urgent Sturm und Drang and sweetly contemplative interludes. The music, which was recorded for the show, is also helpful in the transitions between scenes, which in the second act were occasionally less than smooth.
Circus skills are naturally the forte for the Dalian troupe, so the interpretive balletic sections are arguably the least compelling elements of the spectacle. Nevertheless, Li Huitong and Zhang Lei are polished in a sinuously icy duet, and the leggy Li Siyi is both elegant and expressive in a visually striking balancing act set behind a projection of green tendrils.
Perhaps what makes the whole thing so much fun is that whether contorting in pretzels or gyroscoping in hoops, the Dalian performers are delightfully warm and engaging. The evening culminates with Lu Mingyue foot-juggling eight umbrellas painted with pink magnolias and Wang Chengyu balanced deftly en pointe on top of Hui Yutao's head as the company floods onto stage around them. You hardly know where to look, but you won't want to look away.
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