da:ns Fest 2014: 4 & 5 is more than the sum of its parts

SINGAPORE — Having run at the exact same time as Wayne McGregor’s FAR, Tao Ye’s double-bill 4 & 5 was an interesting counterpoint.

The two contemporary choreographers (who may or may not regularly bump into each other at Sadler’s Wells since Tao’s a “New Wave Associates” artist over there) both have very forward-thinking philosophies about dance and the body, but on the evidence of the two shows, somewhat occupy opposite ends of the spectrum. Compared to McGregor’s whirlwind of ideas in FAR, Tao’s show epitomised the virtue of distilling everything into one single idea and running away with it.

Performed by the Chinese choreographer and his Tao Dance Theater, the two pieces are part of a series of works that are titled based on the number of performers. Meaning is left up to you. As simple as that.

As so, in 4 we had four masked performers moving in unison but never touching. To the inventive soundtrack of musician Xiao He — a kind of Chinese version of the Indian Konnakol that layers staccato, scat-like vocal phrases a capella — we witnessed the beauty of almost taking flight. There’s a sense of buoyancy even if you hardly saw leaps and the dancers mostly grounded. The choreography felt chillax and conveyed nonchalance; even when the dancers bent backwards before squatting or striding forward, it was seemingly with a casual demeanour. It’s pretty trance-inducing, and not only for the audience. Even the dancers looked like they were at the brink of swooning.

If in 4, they danced as a unit, the five performers in 5 *became* a unit.

It started with them sitting on top of each other to form something like a human caterpillar (not a human centipede, you sick mind). Then they/it transformed into this beautiful mass, slowly circling the stage like some spiny sea slug — or some protozoan organism — for the duration of the piece. Imagine five people wrestling, piling on or tumbling over each other (or some artful drug-fueled orgy) where no one stands up, everything’s in slow motion and it’s devoid of sexuality.

Because, in a sense, 5 did what FAR tried to, which was examining the inner workings of the body. And in Tao’s vision of sexless bodies merging into an indistinguishable, anonymous mass of limbs, torsos and shaven heads, he has returned the body not to its mechanical roots but its primordial one.

Halfway through, 5 initially seemed drag on (no pun intended), with very little variations seen. Until you focused on one dancer at a time and in the slowness, your eyes finally picked out his or her movement as it was simultaneously urged forward and pulled down by gravity’s momentum. Seen as one section of a bigger piece, you could definitely admire the novelty and innovation of this blob-as-dance bit. But for Tao, this alone was enough — a singular idea that makes for a truly fascinating sight.

For more details, visit http://www.dansfestival.com/2014/