Cultural expectations and perceptions of Chinese art and Chinese women clash and collide with Western sensibility and Asian sensibility. Stereotypes are broken and reinforced. The familiar is made strange and the strange is made familiar. Remarkable that all can be done within a multi-arts presentation with high production values . It was a combination of Chinese classical dance, Chinese folk dance, Western and Chinese music. The costumes are almost always  beautiful but sometimes exotically tacky. Many are influenced and inspired by Chinese historical fashion, while others seem very post-modern and fastasy-oriented.

The Western music is drawn from well-known  classical music by Puccini, Massenet and others, and sung in Mandarin Chinese.  Of course when the originals are sung in Italian, French or German, I never understood them anyways.  But the singers conveyed the emotional content of the songs, and the themes of love found and love lost, and so translated the meaning through their presence and projection.

The show was divided into 4 separate parts with a single intermission in the middle. Part One was inspired by the Tang Dynasty - one of the cultural high points of Chinese history, followed by Part Two which was inspired by the Modern Period. Part Three followed the intermission and was inspired by the Ching Dynasty, which was the last dynasty before it was overthrown by the Republican revolution in the early 1900's. This was followed by Part Four, inspired by the future.


Throughout each "period", the music featured a combination of Western music with Chinese lyrics, chinese folk songs, and original Chinese music, Chinese classical dance or contemporary choreography. Sometimes the costumes and dancing seemed tackily inappropriate like a Roger Vadim movie, sometimes they were beautifully breathtaking, as was the dancing. Sometimes the music seemed overly sacharine like Muzak or Andrew Lloyd Webber, but sometimes it was lyrically beautiful.

Senses is meant to be an impressionistic expression of Chinese Womanhood, exploring different aspects but heavily on the sensual and beautiful. There are an abundance of revealing costumes that show off the female form. Some flow like beautiful silken clouds, while the dancers' costumes for the Modern Age are garish, an imitation of cut-out cowboy riding chaps in chiffon, revealing red panties. This combined with the provative poses was very distracting, and while it might seem to be more at home in a burlesque show, it brought to my mind a comparison of the costumes and choreography of the recent Ballet BC's production of Rite of Spring, which was itself extremely sexual. It is my belief that costumes are used to accentuate and enhance the performance, however this production is also using costume designs to make statements.

It is a challenge to see beyond the cultural veils of expectations and expression. Is what we are seeing truly based on Chinese song and dance? Is this what is going on in contemporary China, Hong Kong or Taiwan? Or is it pushed to the next level, mixed and fused with Western conceptions and production values?

In Vancouver, we haven't really seen the top Chinese ballet dancers yet, as China is probably wary of defections. When Max Wyman came to see Terracotta Warriors he told me that the Russian Ballet Masters greatly influenced the Chinese schools in the late 1800's and early 1900's. While at the same time the Chinese used their grand history of acrobatics and traditional dance to also influence their forms of classical ballet. What we saw in SENSES was a combination as dancer Tang Jia Li, incorporates both acrobatic form with Chinese classical dance into something very stunning and beautiful.

The revealing costumes question whether Women's Liberation and issues of male objectification of females has entered the Chinese sensibility, or is it only now that the female body and its art is being liberated from the bondage or male oppression dictated by bound feet, restrictive clothing and patriarchy?

Altogether, SENSES is an very enjoyable show. It is an ambitious show that at times is overwhelming by trying to include a bit too much of everything. The dancers parading as chorus girls contrasted greatly with the high quality of the pas de deux. The sacharine sweet orchestration contrasted with the vituosity of the solo singing or instrumental solos.

In its larger-than-life moments, featured dancer Tang Jia Li flies through the air in a harness, lifted by almost invisible wires. She strikes poses that make it seem effortless with incredible muscular control.

In the final scene, the onstage musicians play in the background, while a pas de deux is performed, while above them, lifted into the air - standing on platforms, two singers perform a duet. What does it have to do with each other? Nothing, except it all adds up to visual spectacle. It is a feast for the visual senses. And that is what the show aspires to. more reflections later....