CHARLES BAO
Members of Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company in “Echoes of the Golden Drum.”
Celebrating Chinese New Year is so much fun that everyone is getting into the act. This year’s dynamic program at The Victoria Theater at NJPAC in Newark, on Feb. 15, included an appearance by the Newark-based folk ensemble Rancho Camponeses do Minho, hosted by the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company of Fort Lee, the annual headliner. While no one attends this event hoping to see a lively Portuguese “vira,” these guests added to the crescendo of energy that always brings the festival to a close.
As with the hip-hop version of the Lion Dance that has now become standard, the program is none the worse for its diversity.
The late choreographer Nai-Ni Chen always took a catholic approach to programming, and her successor, artistic director Greta Campo, has no reason to tamper with a formula that works so well. The delightful Year of the Horse celebration was a theatrical potpourri combining both traditional and modern dances along with classical Chinese music, and acrobatics. Dances featuring beloved characters like the Lion and the Dragon return every year, but the balance of the program always varies.
This year’s novelties included a sharply etched performance of the Dai Duet, choreographed by Ying Shi, the company’s director of traditional dance. Yuchin “Kiki” Tseng and Madeleine Lee were the duet partners in sumptuous robes and red straw hats, displaying their hands in a characteristic gesture with palms flattened and thumbs cocked. Hooking their feet together, the women reached away from each other, composing an elegant, horizontal tableau. Placed one behind the other, their bodies circled and swayed in complementary movements.
CHARLES BAO
Two dancers in “Qiang Bells in Joyful Dance.”
Learning how to handle props is part of the challenge for the company’s traditional dance students. A well-drilled ensemble of 11 young ladies performed with fringed tambourines in Echoes of the Golden Drum, striking coy poses against an animated background of drifting flower petals, and performing acrobatic stretches. They seemed even more self-assured in Qiang Bells in Joyful Dance, where the lithe, swift teens spun flower blossoms attached to their shoulders with strings.
The adult dancers had their own props to manage. In Nai-Ni Chen’s Mountain Rain in the Tea Garden, the women created artful patterns, wheeling red-lacquered parasols and walking with a graceful swinging step, heads tilted at a charming angle. A must-have accessory for Mongolian dances are bunches of chopsticks used to accentuate the rhythm with body-percussion. In choreographer Lawrence Jin’s premiere, Mongolian Harvest, lusty men and women also pumped their fists as they simulated riding horses wildly across the steppe.
In contrast to these colorful and elaborately outfitted dances, Chen’s contemporary piece, Carousel, clothed the dancers in leotards, highlighting the clean shapes made by their bodies and the movements of their flashing limbs. Carousel was also playful, however, its jazzy accompaniment by The Turtle Island String Quartet producing unexpected commotions. In the central duet, Madeleine Lee rode Lorenzo Guerini’s hip and leaned against his upturned feet. He seized her and turned her upside down. The others pranced and kicked and circled on the floor, suggesting the power of horses and the rotation of the titular carousel without depicting them literally.
CHARLES BAO
Yuchin “Kiki” Tseng and Madeleine Lee dance the “Dai Duet.”
Musical interludes were even more abstract, but with a little imagination audience members could conjure their own visions as Liang Xing Tong plucked the twanging pipa and Yi Yang stroked the dulcimer-like guzheng, producing silvery scales. The musical repertoire included such evocative titles as “Flower and Moon Over the Spring River of Night.”
Moving abruptly from China to Portugal, the sudden appearance of the Rancho Camponeses do Minho may have reminded some viewers of the old Sherman Brothers’ song “It’s a Small World (After All).” Wearing doll-like costumes, with the men all in black and the women in brilliantly embroidered aprons and slippers, these folk dancers performed to their own rousing music, however, stamping, twirling and trading places while playing castanets. This lilting and spirited Vira da Ribeira was choreographed by Miguel Veloso.
Then it was back to Chinese New Year and the vibrant Dragon Festival, with its leaping acrobats, snapping flags and hypnotic, curling streamers building to a pitch of excitement and preparing the way for the entrance of the Dragon himself. Swooping and dipping, and rushing up the theater aisles, this reptilian roller-coaster is the star of the show — the magnetic personality whom everyone has been waiting for, spiffy in his green silk skin and golden scales.
The frolicsome Dragon promises good luck, and all who attend this celebration can consider themselves blessed.
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