INSPIRATION COMES IN many forms. Andy Wong Ting-lam finds his in fellow dancer and choreographer Taiju Matsumoto. 'This morning, Taiju said he had a dream in which the ground beneath him was in motion,' Wong says. 'The whole house was moving as he danced. He described the phenomenon [in Japanese] as 'ground waves'.'
Matsumoto says that, in any performance, dancers shouldn't just move their bodies, but also the environment around them - the audience, the walls, even the chairs. Dancers should be able to feel these things and move with them. This interaction with their surroundings is important, he says.
'That's my belief, too,' says Wong. 'I wouldn't go as far as moving chairs, but I think dancers should communicate with the audience, by passing their feelings - channelling their energy - to them.'
There's no point in dancing if you concentrate only on the body and physical aesthetics, he says.
'Dancers should be able to move with the universe. And the older you get, the more you move from your inner world to the outer world.'
It's this sharing of a similar vision - and the fact that both are pushing 40 years of age - that recently brought the two independent contemporary Asian dancers together for a 10-year cross-cultural project.
