Reflections of society
VICE VERSA Hong Kong Cultural Centre Studio Theatre THE programme notes for Vice Versa made the following request: 'In order to make this performance a pleasant experience to everybody, please ensure to make use of the mirror that you obtain at the doorway.' It was rather hard at first to understand what use should be made of the mirrors we had been handed on our way in: were they to ensure that we had no ugly blemishes before entering the sacred realms of Zuni Icosahedron's back-to-front theatre? But later, as the harsh, searching studio lights flashed on the audience, reminiscent perhaps of prison camps or political meetings, the opportunity to send mirror reflections skitting randomly across the stage seemed like self defence against the deliberate intrusiveness of Zuni's direction.
One woman in the audience spent the second part of the performance letting the light made by her mirror play rather caressingly around the body of dancer and quick-change artist Wong Kwan-sun - to the evident irritation of other members of the audience who wanted to maintain more traditional boundaries between the watchers and the viewers.
Wong demonstrated his rigorous early training under the City Contemporary Dance Company with an athletic and sometimes dreamy performance. One moment he was a ballet dancer, the next he was being pummelled by imaginary fist fighters. The next he was flat on his back.
Predictably, Vice Versa was sizzling with symbolism. Wong had a large kitchen clock, which he placed in different quarters of the stage, and danced in front of, responding differently on each occasion. Limited time? A musician on a traditional Chinese stringed instrument plays in cacophonical counterpoint with a violinist. Cultural clashes? A parade of musicians, walking up and down a catwalk like a fourth-rate fashion show in the dark, is followed by one performer with a triangle who cannot work out how it is 'supposed' to work, and instead just makes a dull tap on the triangle's frame. Social dysfunction? With Zuni productions it is possible to look for meaning - political comment about China, social representation of Hong Kong's status, spiritual questions - in every gesture. Which can sometimes make the experience more cerebral than emotional. Why did Wong go to the four corners of the room? Why is the man with the drum looking into the light? Why is he walking away? Sometimes I found myself thinking so much that I almost forgot to respond to the poignancy of some of the routines. But it was hard not to watch, mesmerised, as a singer walked around the stage, crooning an English pop ballad, his voice fading to nothing until it was overtaken by an uncomfortably loud drum riff from backstage; or as another performer who first appeared as a meditative monk reappeared as a painfully thin, half-clad soldier complete with trench hat, wandering and apparently lost.
After it ended - in typical Zuni style, without clues to whether we should applaud, or indeed even to whether the performance was over - what was left was a disturbing sense of darkness. We have nowhere to go; where are we going? Last performances today at 3pm and 8pm.
