Moon Water, a dance piece with mirrors and water and set to Bach's 'Suites for Solo Cello', by choreographer Lin Hwai-min, who fuses meditation, tai-chi, martial arts and Chinese opera movement with modern dance and ballet.... all elements seemed conjured to deliver one enjoyable night, right!!? well, not exactly.
The dancers moved veeeeeeeeerry sssslllloooooooooooowwwwllly most of the time, call me suspicious, but the slowness lends an "air of importance" to what strikes me as a fairly basic premise and its vapid, repetitive elaboration. The accompanying music was veeeeeeeery boooooooring and depressive as well. Despite the impressive effect of water flooding the whole stage at the end (which later i knew wasn't permitted to recicle, i wounder why?!!), i was still recovering from the faintly traumatising previous sequences that most of the closing scene was lost on me.
Lin Hwai-min has conjured quite literally the most boring performance that could ever been conceived. It's saving grace is the touch of water movement and sound which elevates the all performance from lifeless to spry corpse. The staging is perfectly acceptable, the performances passable & boring, the sets have a few strong moments, but yet nothing can save this from being quite the most painful evening at the theatre.
Being trapped in a boring performance can make minutes seem like hours as they tick by, it just wasn't captivating to me.
Video Moon Dance Performance at Brisbane Festival 2009
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