APEX’s Innovation Yields to Tradition

Call it a performance bazaar: the first public showcase of the international artists selected for the Asia Pacific Performance Exchange, an innovative collaborative project now in its second year at UCLA. However, innovation and collaboration weren’t the focus of this free seven-part APEX sampler program, Friday at California Plaza downtown. No, except for three selections at the very end by the APEX II Music Ensemble, the emphasis stayed on the traditional, often classical idioms that the participants learned in their countries of origin.

Here, for instance, was Liu Ziwei in an excerpt from the Peking Opera repertory, flinging peaches across the Watercourt stage as the irresistibly disreputable Monkey King, China’s immortal lord of misrule. Whether staggering drunkenly or executing perfect turning flips while spinning a long, long magic wand, he looked splendid--though his speech and, especially, singing, proved well-nigh inaudible in this problematic outdoor venue.

Similarly, the “Yoke-thay” movement duet for dancer and string puppet from Myanmar would have benefited from greater proximity to the audience than the Watercourt allowed, though puppeteer U Ye Htut managed to make his marionette look completely human while dancer U Chan Tha seemed to dangle insensibly from invisible wires. The latter also moved as close to the audience as possible--on the steps at the front of the stage--during his rhythmic “Spirit Drum” solo, full of startling shifts between sharp movements and liquid ones.

In a sequence from the Hindu epic “Ramayana,” Painkulam Narayana Chakyar demonstrated the rich gestural expressivity of the Kutiyattam idiom from South India, switching between the roles of demon-observer and animal participants in a narrative full of violence and wonder. And Mae Bang Yi’s choreography for the solo “Sal puri-choom” invoked the solemn grace of Korean shamanistic traditions, with Sen Hea Ha seeming to float in clouds of white silk as she manipulated a long scarf in rites of exorcism.

Most of the dances featured taped accompaniments, but the program boasted major musical interest--first off, from Nguyen Thuy Thi’s performance of Tro Ve Tay Nguyen’s “Return to Highland” on a Vietnamese bamboo xylophone, with as much beauty to offer sculpturally as in its delicate, smoky tone. Artfully manipulating her flat, round hat to ornament her singing, Tran Thi Van Quyen performed “Qua Can Gio Bay” from the same country.

Later on, Uttam Chakraborty played an exquisite flute solo from the hill tribes of Bangladesh, followed by M. Fazlur Rahman’s vigorous introduction to their nation’s improvisational vocal traditions. Rahman then launched the multinational APEX II jam by singing “The Boat Rowing Song,” with Chakraborty subsequently contributing an untitled improvisational piece featuring an undulating flute supported by massed but very subdued drumming underneath.

The grand finale turned out to be “Clarity,” a leisurely, atmospheric piece by Kenny Endo, who had previously displayed his skill in the Vietnam and Bangladesh segments. Setting bowed, plucked and strummed strings against flute and at least five kinds of percussion, Endo also incorporated a chattering vocal interlude derived from Balinese Kecak chant. As always, the choreographed Watercourt fountains added their own spectacle to the event.