Life > February 15, 2007

By Lauren O’Keefe

Staff writer

The next Secrest Artists Series performance features a piece choreographed by a woman who grew up during the Cultural Revolution in China under the rule of Mao Zedong.

In Yin Mei’s piece, which will be presented at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 22 and 23 in Brendle Recital Hall, she translates her emotions during her childhood to the stage.

During the Cultural Revolution in China, children were used as pawns for Mao’s rule.

Yin said in a New York Times article, “We were the children of Chairman Mao. We wanted to offer our life to him.”

Throughout this time, Mei was dancing and in 1985 she was offered a grant from the Asian Cultural Council to dance in New York City.

Her style of dance combines a variety of dance and techniques — traditional Chinese dance, modern, and martial arts.

Mei’s piece, entitled “Nomad, The River,” opens with excerpts from her diary when she was between the ages of seven and 14.

In addition, slogans from the Cultural Revolution are read out.

The piece depicts a specific childhood experience for Mei — a day when she was 12 or 13 when she watched a man’s execution.

The entire dance centers around this instance and each aspect of the piece portrays different parts of that memory.

The name of the dance, “Nomad: The River” refers to the Ganges River in India and the Yellow River in China, which in her mind both possess the dual qualities of healing and harming at the same time.

Mei created the piece in conjunction with Chris Salter, a media artist/sound designer and Shao Lia, a lighting designer.

It premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in New York in March 2005.

Salter, in discussing Mei’s work for a New York Times article said, “I’ve worked on and seen a lot of dance, and what impressed me about Yin Mei’s work was the sheer visceral quality of it.”

Music from a variety of scores is used, complemented with electronic and natural sounds.

Of the score Slater said, “It opens up a world, yet you’re not sure what it is. You hear jungle noises and cicadas, but then there are strange low rumbles. At times, it will feel like there’s an earthquake erupting beneath you.”

The set involves fiberglass screens and black and white images that portray trees, snow or light reflecting in a pool of water.

This piece has been highly acclaimed by critics and it has been performed for many soldout audiences. Now university students have been given a great opportunity to see this piece performed.

The Village Voice said of the piece, “The greatly gifted Yin Mei works from a deep place … ‘Nomad’ brushes our mind with images whose poetry ensnares us, whose enigmas taunt us.”

Christina Tsoules Soriano, assistant professor of theater and dance, will be giving a pre-performance talk at 6:40 p.m. in Brendle 208

Complimentary tickets are available at Benson Ticket office for the performances on Feb. 22 and 23.