‘Yin and Yang’ bridges U.S.-China cultural divide
By RUSTY GRAHAM
Updated: 10.27.09
In the upscale Monnalisa lounge in Hotel Sorella, Scott Gehman watches WyldStyl perform a scene from “The Legend of Yin & Yang” for the gathered press and others.
Gehman follows the sequence with great interest and with a knowing eye, or, perhaps, a knowing ear. He’s seen and heard it before — as the show’s composer, every note came from his imagination and creativity.
And the scene he’s watching is only part of a part of the show. Performers in Houston are rehearsing the show in English, while performers in Shenzhen, China — the Yate Acrobatic Troupe and the Shaolin Young Monks — rehearse the show in Mandarin.
Gehman, the chair of Houston Community College’s audio recording and film department, will get to see the full cast perform Oct.31 and Nov. 1 at Houston Baptist University’s Morris Cultural Arts Center.
The show then travels to China in late November for several performances in Shenzhen, Houston’s sister city in southern China.
The HBU venue was chosen not only for its “fabulous acoustics and lighting” and “tall ceilings” that can accommodate any kind of acrobatics, Gehman said, but also for its proximity to Houston’s Chinese community along Bellaire Boulevard and to the southwest in Fort Bend County.
The U.S. and Chinese casts will come together only days before the Houston performace, giving writer/director Burton Wolfe little time to bring the two troupes into a cohesive whole.
“The magic is when the folks get together a couple of days before the performances and are melded into a single group,” said Gehman.
The lyrics and narration are written in “Seussian” style, Gehman said, and every word, every phrase is repeated in both English and Mandarin.
This will be the revival of “The Legend of Yin and Yang,” so to speak. First performed in South Florida and in Shenzhen, China, the show has been updated to accommodate Houston performers WyldStyl Hip Hop Dance Troupe.
“The Legend of Yin and Yang” incorporates a variety of theatrical sytles, including Broadway, hip hop, Chinese acrobatics and martial arts, and highlight the cultural strengths of each country.
The story is one of “conflict, cooperation and love,” Gehman said. Two nations that don’t understand one another are constantly at war, but when leaders are killed, the countries must learn to cooperate.
Gehman had to refine his score somewhat to add the hip hop beats needed by WyldStyl. But that was the easy part. Mixing the original scores in 2005 involved travel to Florida, then China on the eve of Hurricane Katrina, then fleeing Houston in front of Hurricane Rita to insure he had the power to finish the job.
The show’s songs are prerecorded, and are sung in both English and Mandarin. After recording in Florida, Gehman packed up his recording gear — laptop, microphones, cords, connectors, everything — and flew to China to record the Mandarin in a hotel room.
Yes, a hotel room.
“We put mattresses against the walls and blankets over the windows,” said Gehman, and recorded for four days.
With everything in digital files, Gehman now needed to mix, edit and do other post-production work before rehearsals started in early October.
And so when Rita was forecast to hit the Gulf Coast somewhere near Houston, Gehman loaded up his three sons, two guinea pigs and a beagle and headed for his sister’s house in Austin, where he worked for several days to make the deadline.
“Fortunately, audio technology is more portable now,” said Gehman.
The 2005 production was the first-ever joint effort between the Chinese and the Western world in Southern China. Wolfe, the writer and director, was made an honorary citized of Shenzhen.
“It’s very much a new frontier for the West,” said Gehman. “It goes beyond the political. It’s cultural.”
Producing the music for the cross-cultural show is a particular point of pride for Gehman, a native Houstonian who attended Fondren Middle, studied music at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and earned a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate in music from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.
He was also music director at Strake Jesuit prior to taking his position at HCC.
Gehman said a lot of the songs in “The Legend of Yin and Yang” end with a question mark rather than an exclamation point.
“I’ve worked hard at producing tension, producing drama,” he said, to reflect the dynamic between the two countries. “The U.S-China relationship will always be in flux.”
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