Artistic Feast For The Eyes
By: Lee Li Ying
With elaborate set changes, sensuous and evocative lighting, and an openly emotional narrative, NUS Dance Synergy has certainly pulled out all the stops for their latest 35th Anniversary Concert. Complementing the concert theme of reflection are intersecting mirrors, silent face-offs and sentimental recollections explicitly demonstrating the title Through The Looking Glass.
The opening piece, Yuen, by Albert Tiong had the dancers act out the astute portion of the play through the dancer’s tenuous relationship with the mirror. The rest of the intelligently-choreographed piece moved well with the abstract narrative arc, along with the dynamic relationships built.
Familial Obsession, choreographed by alumna Samantha Eva Ho, moved with a dark sleekness. The clean lines and minimalistic set were a welcome break from the over-utilized props, with the audience’s attention finely focused on the dancers’ graceful athleticism instead. Peering behind sheer black skirts, the all-female cast had a breathtaking eloquence and magnetizing authority, powering through overhead lifts and stage-traversing leaps.
Lead dancer, Ang Jun Kai literally cuts a larger-than-life figure onstage in the production’s title item. Due to the clever use of lighting, his shadow lords over the audience in an eerily menacing and instantly arresting display of command. With every shudder and tremble spun into phrases of exceptional invention, Jun Kai commanded the choreography and developed his own absorbing story around the work’s dramatic core, making this piece the definitive climax of the night.
Overall, the production’s romanticized retrospection about the group’s humble beginnings could have appeared self-gratifying and indulgent, but the group’s obvious camaraderie and sense of family made the storytelling believable and at times, heartwarming. A dancer’s journey is never easy, and yet it is obvious that the group has grown from strength to strength artistically as well as technically under the tutelage of the disciplined, Albert Tiong.
