Sutra

[GeneChing]

Did anyone here see this? It reminds me of Alonzo King's Long River High Sky. Was this the show that was in that National Geographic doc, Secrets of the Kung Fu Temple?

Sutra
Sadler's Wells, London
o Judith Mackrell
o The Guardian, Friday 30 May 2008

The Shaolin monks put on a five-star performance just by being themselves. It's not just the collective virtuosity of their kung fu heritage - their flying kicks, their backflips, their shadow-boxing. Practised as part of the monks' spiritual discipline, these maniacally dangerous and beautiful moves also carry the aura of compelling ritual.

For choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and his collaborators, the artist Antony Gormley and the composer Szymon Brzóska, the challenge of working with 17 monks from the Shaolin temple is to make convincing dance theatre out of an already incredible show. They have succeeded in spades. Sutra combines dance, music and design in ways that intensify the mystery of the monks' prowess, even as it opens up new views of their agility.

For those expecting straight physical fireworks, the opening minutes may seem muted. On a stage lined with coffin-sized wooden boxes, Cherkaoui and 11-year-old Shi Yandong sit and face each other. Cherkaoui gestures delicately to the boy, as if trying to communicate in sign language. Then the adult monks rise out of the boxes; as each performs a tiny vignette of martial-arts brilliance, they seem to come from a very alien world.

These are the two threads that run through Sutra: Cherkaoui, a fascinated, interrogative westerner trying to find a way into the monks' culture, and the enchantingly alert, fearless little Yandong, who leads him on his quest. Their journey is a maze of episodic dance stories, each revealing the monks in a different aspect. The stacked boxes, conceived and designed by Gormley, are both functional and miraculous. They can be arranged to resemble the petals of a lotus flower, upon which Yandong sits like a little Buddha, or they can be upended to become a forest of skyscrapers, upon which the monks stand gazing as if on their first trip to the city.

Brzóska's music gives each episode extra emotional colour and gathers the work to its powerful conclusion. Cherkaoui, having choreographed the monks into a climactic ensemble, also reaches the end of his quest, his pale, supple, questioning body finally dancing confidently among them.

It is not just Cherkaoui who has made the journey: the audience, too, gain some kind of privileged intimacy with the monks. This unique, profoundly imagined work takes the concept of cultural exchange to a new level.

· Ends tomorrow. Box office: 0844 412 4300.

[sha0lin1]

When we were there, I noticed several wooden boxes piled up in the corner of the indoor training facility near the monks quarters. I bet those were the ones they used when they were practicing for this show.

[GeneChing]

Anyone in Europe that can fill us in on this?

Author: T. Njezic | 15.09.2009 - 08:41
Sutra at festival opening

Tonight’s grand opening ceremony and the performance of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s play Sutra – featuring appearances from Shaolin Temple monks – will mark the beginning of the 43rd Bitef Theatre Festival.

The Belgrade theatre audience will have been treated to nine shows in the main festival programme by the time the curtain falls on the event on 26 September. A press conference was held on Monday ahead of the Bitef, where Canada ambassador to Belgrade John Morrison, members of the Ex Machina theatre company from Canada, Jovan Cirilov and Kokan Mladenovic all addressed the media.

One of the special treats of this year’s Belgrade theatre festival will be Robert Lepage’s The Blue Dragon, performed by Ex Machina. The Canadian Embassy in Belgrade has, among others, supported the selection of this play, scheduled to be performed on 16, 17 and 18 September.

Jovan Cirilov reflected on the fact this year it is the 20th anniversary of the death of Mira Trajlovic – the founder and first president of Bitef and that due attention will be devoted to the remembrance of Trajlovic, through the screening of a half-hour movie on Trajlovic, named Talijina kci, directed by Milan Sarac.

After the performance of Jo Stromgren’s play The Writer at Atelje 212 on 22 and 23 September, a round-table discussion is planned with the theme “Quislings in art”. Kokan Mladenovic, the manager of Atelje 212 theatre, has expressed delight over the fact a number of round-table discussions will be organized as part of the Bitef 2009.

The play Sutra, directed and choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui of London, UK, and performed by the Shaolin Temple monks, takes Confucius and Taoism learning as the starting point, blending ancient kung-fu routines and modern European dances.

[GeneChing]

Not that informative however...

Sep 16, 2009
Do or Dune

ABOUT four months after Sutra - his Singapore Arts Festival - Moroccan Cherkaoui is coming back to Singapore.

This time, he is teaming up with Spanish flamenco dancer Maria Pages to present Dunas, or Sand Dunes.

Singaporeans will be the first in the world to see this collaborative work, which is one of the highlights of the Esplanade's da:ns festival.

The arts centre is one of the co-producers of the work, along with arts organisations such as Britain's Sadler's Wells.

Pages says the decision to premiere the work here was made because she 'feels very comfortable in Singapore'.

She says: 'We work very well with the Esplanade. In Singapore, we feel very protected and it is a good place to premiere the show.'

The 10-day annual dance festival, now into its fourth year, starts on Oct 23. It has nine ticketed performances and outdoor dance classes.

Cross-cultural themes run through many of the productions at the festival. Indeed, cultural matchmaking is in Cherkaoui's blood.

Sutra, for example, came out of a three-month sojourn in the Shaolin Temple in Song Shan near Zhengzhou City in Henan province, China.

Dunas is inspired by undulating desert landscape.

[GeneChing]

This is another show I would still like to see.

I think I'm going to go expel some inner demons now.

Centring the body through violence
Shaolin Temple's fighting monks explore the paradox that kung fu can expel the inner demons
By VICTOR SWOBODA, special to the gazetteOctober 31, 2009

The combination of one of Europe's hottest young choreographers and the legendary fighting monks of China's Shaolin Temple makes Sutra among the most-anticipated dance shows of the fall season. East certainly meets West in this work of cultural fusion by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, who, with a Belgian mother and a Moroccan father, is a work of fusion himself.

Cherkaoui, 33, gained fame in the late 1990s as a choreographer with Belgium's avant-garde Les Ballets C. de la B., which presented his exuberant dance/theatre tour de force, Foi, in Montreal in 2003 (his newly formed company, Eastman, remounts the work next year). Framed by sheer, grey oppressive walls overlooking a prop-ridden floor, the large cast of diverse characters put on a disturbing display of angst and violent acts in their search for faith.

Cherkaoui's own search for faith - he's someone who's constantly looking - brought him last year to the Shaolin Temple, one of the oldest continuously functioning religious shrines in the world. Buddhist monks founded the temple 1,500 years ago in the mountainous terrain of China's Hunan province. Sutra refers to Budhha's sermons. Abstinence is the rule at the temple - meat and alcohol, for example, are not allowed.

The resident discipline, however, is martial arts. The Shaolin style of kung-fu produces a high-kicking, high-flying, nimble fighter of remarkable speed. Small wonder that Shaolin graduates like Jet Li found themselves in kung-fu movies (Li's debut movie in 1982 was called Shaolin Temple, the first Hong Kong movie filmed in mainland China).

Outcries that movies cheapen the Temple's heritage have not prevented Jackie Chan from planning to shoot a movie there "with one thousand monks" next year (as a climax, the temple gets blown up).

In contrast, Cherkaoui came to the temple with great respect for its founding philosophy.

"It's a paradox. Kung fu is violent, but it's a way for the body to be centred and healthy, without inner conflict," said Cherkaoui, speaking in French in a recent telephone interview from his home in Antwerp. "Everyone must find (this paradox) in their own way to varying degrees."

A vegetarian and teetotaler by choice, Cherkaoui found much to sympathize with when he arrived at the temple in the winter of 2008 for three months of rehearsals. The food "was healthy and good for my body and mind - I felt quite strong in myself." But he was still a Westerner who could not yet entirely embrace Buddhism's dispassionate acceptance of misfortune.

Frustration set in, for instance, on his first day in China when local carpenters presented him with 14 wooden boxes that designer Antony Gormley had ordered for Sutra.

"They were the wrong size. We had all the boxes, but they were completely the wrong dimensions. We wanted to thank the carpenters, but at the same time, it wasn't what we needed."

Eventually, the right-sized boxes were made - each large enough for a monk to fit in. Throughout Sutra, the monks under Cherkaoui's guidance manipulate the boxes in unexpected ways as a kind of open-ended metaphor for confinement and release. The boxes could be a metaphor for Buddhism itself.

"Buddhism is a transparent religion that doesn't exclude anyone. All can enter. That's so important," said Cherkaoui, who likes to present conceptual ideas in his works.

"The only things that interest me are those that are all-inclusive, that reject nothing. The problem with many religions is that they exclude people. At the Shaolin Temple, even with its many rules, it's almost without form. You can model it as you want."

Obliged to work with a translator, Cherkaoui found the language barrier a plus.

"It was nice to hear something incomprehensible. We're often in a milieu where we're talking. There, language didn't have the same importance. Communication had to be carried out in other ways."

His initial rehearsals with four monks quickly attracted the curiosity of others. Within a week and a half, he had a band of 20. Cherkaoui found that they were not all cut from the same cloth.

"Some are more spiritual, some are there for the kung fu, some stay for five years, then marry. It's an honour for parents that their son enters the temple, but they like to have them return to take up the family business."

Constantly together at the temple, the monks on tour often prefer to be alone.

"One of them told me it's a way to understand oneself and be at peace, so they look for solitude."

Cherkaoui, by contrast, likes to put on shows partly because it brings people together for a common experience.

"I'm not so religious, but I believe in communion with others - being in a ritual setting with several hundred people watching a show together. Living the same moment together, talking about it afterwards - it's a communion like going to church and discussing the sermon. It's not the same as watching TV."

Sutra, Wednesday to Saturday, Nov. 8, at 8 p.m. in Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts. Tickets, $26.58-$54.04 plus tax. Call 514-842-2112.

[GeneChing]

Follow the links for pix

November 5th, 2009
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Sutra
Awake in the world
Philip Szporer

Inspired by the martial arts of Buddhist monks, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Sutra finds a profound cultural connection

Located in the magnificent, sacred Songshan Mountains in China's Henan Province, the thick stoned-walled Shaolin Temple, engraved with ancient inscriptions, has a serenity that seems to reach right to the soul. This austere place and the message of peace imbued by the martially trained Buddhist monks living there inspired Belgian dance sensation Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's latest creation, Sutra.

While the philosophy and explosiveness of kung fu fuelled Cherkaoui's journey to the East, it also became his portal of discovery and learning. "It was a journey that broadened my conception of the body," says the ingenious 33-year-old dancer-choreographer, on the line from Antwerp, readying himself for a four-night run in Montreal, part of Danse Danse's fall program.

The road to the monks met Cherkaoui's need to continue an imaginative life, at least for a time, beyond the geography, history and high-velocity energies of Europe. "I felt tired and trapped. [There], people in the art and dance world are way too much in their mind, and not enough in the body." At the vanguard of Flemish new dance, the warm and intelligent Cherkaoui is perhaps best known for his creative collaborations with the Ballets C. de la B. and the British contemporary kathak dance artist Akram Khan.

War and peace

As a child, Cherkaoui's hero was Bruce Lee. The martial arts master's very specific understanding of the human dynamics of change and his philosophical worldview to "seek answers and improvement" affected him deeply. "Real combat is not fixed and is very much 'alive'" was Lee's maxim, and he spoke about drawing from nature, from elemental forces. "Through [Lee]," says Cherkaoui, "I delved deeper into kung fu, to the Shaolin school of Chan [or Zen] Buddhism."

For Sutra (the word stands for the sermons or scriptural narratives of Buddha and is the generic term for rules and aphorisms), Cherkaoui's martial arts quest connected with the Shaolin monks' understanding of movement, their complete identification and interconnectedness with various animals, and their remarkable ability to become the essence of a tiger, crane or snake - elements that also resonated with Cherkaoui's increasing inclination to move with more animal-like qualities.

Arriving in a new locale, Cherkaoui admits he's "a bit like a chameleon, trying to get the colours of a place. A part of me transforms and tries to fit in, to be useful. Then I don't feel homesick, I'm there with a purpose."

His journey began in May 2007, as he met the temple's abbot, Master Shi Yongxin, and observed the monks training in kung fu and t'ai chi martial arts doctrine. These spiritually and physically toned men are warrior-fit yet pacifist, and work religiously at the temple, immersed in strict study. (The Shaolin monks sent abroad to commercially showcase their art are not from this original temple.) In this landscape, Cherkaoui relished "how healthy they were in their body, and how they attained strength from this harsh and complex system [of movement]. What they've become is superhuman."

Cherkaoui's ultimate goal was not to turn these "open, respectful and disciplined" monks into dancers, but he did generate a sense of elegance close to dance: "I was privileged to learn about their moves, about their quickness and shifts."

All 17 monks performing in Sutra are at least 10 years younger than Cherkaoui - the diminutive child-monk Shi Yandong, known as Dong Dong, is just 12 - and mesmerize with amazing back flips and gravity-defying jumps. At one point they appear in Western suits: "It helps them incarnate [their roles]. If they stay in monk's garb, they'd remain exotic and distant."

Cultural combination

Cherkaoui, once described as having "the suppleness of a contortionist and the fanaticism of a flagellant," performs a particular role in the piece. "My character is a bit like the Magician's Apprentice in Fantasia, but not so innocent. I'm a bit like a wanderer, manipulating them and vice-versa. There's real interaction."

Cultural exchange is a recurring theme reflected in Cherkaoui's prolific work. As his name implies, his own identity is a mix of cultures - his father Moroccan-born, his mother Belgian. "We're all the product of two people, the [beauty] of a mix," he said in conversation earlier this year at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. "This is what I want to talk about - we are all not pure."

Sutra's score, played live, was written for piano, percussion and strings by talented Polish composer Szymon Brzoska. His emotional, melancholic and tonal composition flows, drawing on the sanctity of the temple and exploring its sensual and spiritual dimensions. The music "generates a sense of dance, and helps me create the right atmosphere," says Cherkaoui.

Turner Prize-winning English sculptor Antony Gormley became Cherkaoui's visual counterpart, designing five-sided, human-sized hollow boxes (a concept from his Allotment 11 piece) that mutate as functional set elements: The monks move in, on and under them, the shifting forms suggestive of playful Lego pieces just as they are symbolic of temples, graveyards, pillars and sanctuary.

Cherkaoui came to China with a sense of absence, to reflect on the philosophy of emptiness; he left with a sense of fullness. Surrounded by the monks, he no longer felt marginal, but part of the norm. "It was wonderful not to have to explain anything. We were kindred spirits. I felt I belonged and it gave me hope." Giving audiences access to these monks is a privilege, and while we register their prowess, Cherkaoui also masterfully shifts our gaze to their inherent poetry.

Sutra
At Théâtre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts, to Nov. 7
www.dansedanse.net

November 5th, 2009
Sutra: Kung fu and pop culture
Way of the dragon
Roseanne Harvey

Bruce Lee brought kung fu to the Western masses, but its sustained appeal transcends the big screen

Almost 40 years after California-born, Hong Kong-raised Bruce Lee became the most famous and ubiquitous representative of kung fu in Western culture, he remains an icon of Chinese martial arts. While kung fu has many forms, the charismatic, movie-star masters capture our collective imagination.

"I think that we're so fascinated with kung fu guys because they seem almost superhuman," says Paul de Tourreil, a Montreal-based Shaolin White Crane kung fu teacher (shaolinwhitecranekungfu.com) who has been studying the martial art with Lorne Bernard for almost 20 years. "It gives us something to aspire to. Kung fu is beautiful and difficult to do."

De Tourreil, who teaches kung fu at the Parc YMCA and UQAM sports centre and choreographs fight scenes for theatre productions, says that, for him, when it comes to big-name inspiration, Jet Li has the moves and chooses movie roles that also embody martial art values. He also cites Yuen Woo-ping, the kung fu choreographer for The Matrix, the Kill Bill movies and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Martial arts have an artistic and spiritual component, and to practise seriously is to devote oneself to persistent training. The literal meaning of the word "kung fu" is "great skill due to diligent effort."

According to de Tourreil, the appeal of kung fu has three elements: self-defence, health and enlightenment. The Shaolin monks represent the latter two. "They train and exercise, they don't smoke or drink. They are exceptional examples
and role models for holistic health."

As for the enlightenment part of the equation, de Tourreil comments, "These young monks own the tools of violence but choose not to use them." Not only among the monks but among all kung fu practitioners, there is a code of conduct for physical and mental behaviour.

While kung fu is rooted in Chinese culture and spirituality, its international appeal is undeniable. The discipline is almost an art form, with a visual appeal based on the human body's phenomenal abilities, reminding us that no matter how limited we might feel in our day-to-day lives, inside us all is a fighter, ready to be coaxed out through training, diligence and hard work.

[GeneChing]

I'm hoping this show has enough legs to make it to America.

Dance Review: Sutra
By Natasha Gauthier, The Ottawa Citizen November 12, 2009

What: Flemish-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui performs Sutra, with warrior monks from China's Shaolin Temple.

When and Where: November 12 at Southam Hall.

Tickets: At the NAC Box Office or through Ticketmaster, 755-1111.

Choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui can always be relied upon to think outside the box. With Sutra, he also thinks inside, over, beneath and around the box.

Man-sized rectangular boxes, open on one side, are Sutra's only prop and set. There are about 20 of them, all made of unadorned pine except for one of galvanized metal. Conceived by Turner-prize winning artist Anthony Gormley, the boxes are so simple that they become whatever Larbi want them to be: coffin, parapet, boat, bookshelf, temple doorway, guard booth--and sometimes even just a box.

Popping in and out of the boxes are 17 monks from the celebrated Shaolin Temple in China's Henan province. Their mythical kung-fu skills have become famous in the West through martial arts movies, and many of the people packing Southam Hall at Wednesday's premiere seemed to be more interested in flying fists than dancing feet.

The monks did not disappoint. Like the song saysóthose cats really are fast as lightening. Heads shorn, dressed identically in loose grey clothing or modern dark suits, they move with a disciplined unison that would be the envy of any corps de ballet. The audience oohed and aahed as they demonstrated kicks, punches, tumbling, wushu weapon mastery and amazing feats of balance.

But without Larbi's probing imagination, it would all be just so much Bruce Lee bravura. Sutra has no narrative, but Larbi creates arresting tableaux, manipulating the space so skilfully that it makes a storyline unnecessary. Szymon Brzoska's exquisite score for piano quartet and percussion, performed live, adds rich layers of colour to the otherwise monochrome work.

Like Zero degrees, Larbi's collaboration with Akram Khan, Sutra is a fascinating meeting of minds, styles and cultures. There is a subtly shimmering play between contrasting concepts: freedom/constraint, group/individual, outsider/community member. There is also contrast between the taut, aggressive, coil-and-release movement of the monks, and Larbi's own uniquely fluid style. When a stern, grunting monk lifts his foot above his head, it's clearly a case of mind and training over matter. When Larbi silently executes the same move, it's more like a cat twisting itself into a pretzel: some creatures are just born that way.

The star of the show is undoubtedly the "baby brother" monk, who looks about 10 years old. With a child's natural openness and dignity, he serves as translator and emissary between East and West.

[GeneChing]

I'm glad it's traveling.

New Dance Programme Defies Borders
Tuesday, 17 November 2009, 3:50 pm
Press Release: New Zealand International Arts Festival

Dance Programme Defies Borders At The New Zealand International Arts Festival In 2010

Dancers from China, the UK, France, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia push the edges of dance and the limits of the human body at the next 2010 New Zealand International Arts Festival.

Shaolin Kung fu warrior monks, hip hoppers, tap, ballet, contemporary dancers and acrobatic circus artists present a dazzling array of the latest dance that has been touring in Europe, the US, UK and Australia as well as the restaging of an acclaimed New Zealand work by New Zealand’s Footnote Dance company.

....

Direct from London’s acclaimed Sadler’s Wells Dance House, award-winning choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui brings his latest work Sutra that has sold out two seasons in London since it opened in May 2008. Sutra has wowed audiences and critics alike wherever it has toured. Twenty Shaolin monks will fly directly from China for the performances in Wellington. Sutra is inspired by the unwavering skill, strength and spirituality of the Buddhist Shaolin monks with whom Cherkaoui lived for several months when making this breathtaking production.

[GeneChing]

Just in Canada!

Sutra is choreography that thinks inside the box
Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui creates a profoundly spiritual work involving 17 monks and 21 coffin-like boxes,
Paula Citron

From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Nov. 06, 2009 3:50PM EST Last updated on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009 3:16AM EST

Anyone who buys a ticket for Sutra expecting a razzle-dazzle kung-fu show is in for a surprise. Working with 17 Shaolin monks, revered Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has created a production of such immense depth and profound spirituality that even sitting in the theatre becomes part of a ritual.

Founded in 495 AD, the Shaolin Temple in the mountains of China's Henan province is both the cradle of Chan (Zen) Buddhism and the martial art kung fu. Sutra is the sacred book that contains the sermons of Buddha. In Hinduism, the word denotes “right conduct,” while in Sanskrit it means “thread.” All these concepts play a role in Cherkaoui's astonishing dance piece, set to Polish composer Szymon Brzoska's moody and melancholy cinematic score, which is played live off stage.

In a grey, walled landscape, acclaimed British sculptor Antony Gormley has placed 21 coffin-sized boxes, each with one side open. If the mind is the building that holds thought, and the body is the building containing the mind, then these boxes are the buildings that embrace humanity.

The piece begins with Cherkaoui as a grand master magician. Between him and the 12-year-old monk Shi Yandong is a miniature version of the giant boxes.

As Cherkaoui, with his beautiful hands, changes the configurations of these little boxes – upending them, moving them into squares, making them fall like dominoes, so the big boxes are manipulated by the monks in a mirror image. Implanted in this box choreography are kung-fu demonstrations, but they rise organically out of the movement itself. Little Yandong is Cherkaoui's petit agent provocateur and fellow orchestrator.

En route, the monks progress from eastern tunics, to western suits, and finally, to bare chests. They also create with these boxes a flow of stunning images that speak to human history. For example, the boxes unfold as a lotus blossom, revealing Yandong as the baby Buddha. They become the heavy burdens that generations of peasants and refugees have carried on their backs. They are office towers that enfold a harried population.

When Cherkaoui joins the monks in a collective kung-fu display, the true place of the martial arts is made known. Training the body is a road to enlightenment.

Sutra continues at Montreal's Place des Arts through tomorrow, followed by performances at Ottawa's National Arts Centre (Nov. 11 and 12) and Quebec City's Grand Théâtre (Nov. 16).

[GeneChing]

There are more there, but I've only watched this one so far.
Sibi Larbi Cherkaoui: Sutra

[GeneChing]

There's another 1 minute vid embedded in the article below - follow the link.

Acrobatic kung-fu monks
By STACEY WOOD - The Dominion Post
Last updated 08:36 26/02/2010

From the programme: Since its first sell-out London performance in May 2008, Sutra has been celebrated by audiences and critics around the world.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Fang Ya Xi

Sutra choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui says living with the Shaolin monks made him finally feel normal.

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui felt more at home living in a monastery in the middle of China's eastern Henan province than in his native Belgium.

In 2008, he spent several months living in the Shaolin monastery, the most famous Buddhist temple in the world.

Now, he is taking the monks to the world with his breathtaking acrobatic show, Sutra.

The temple's kung-fu academy had been looking for an artist to collaborate with, to display the monks' incredible martial arts talent.

Cherkaoui was looking for inner peace.

"It was a way of getting away from Europe. I was fed up with a certain way of being, and I needed to feel normal.

"Even though it was very alien to me and I did not speak Chinese, that is where I felt more normal."

Cherkaoui was offered his choice of the monks to cast in his performances, but he preferred to let the disciples approach him unsolicited.

He felt at home in the monastery in a way he never had in Europe. As a vegan who never drinks alcohol, he is at odds with the majority of Western culture.

"It's part of my makeup, but as a part-Belgian, part-Moroccan, it is very unusual. It's is very tiring to be the exception all the time, the weird one."

His father was a Moroccan Muslim and his mother a Belgian Catholic. "They were incompatible, but they loved each other."

The idea of being caught in the middle of miscommunication is a major theme in Sutra.

Turner Prize-winning artist Antony Gormley designed and made 21 wooden boxes for the show, each big enough for the monks to fit inside. Amid the acrobatics, the boxes variously form a wall, a boat, a graveyard and more.

The score, written by Polish composer Szymon Brzska is "extremely melancholic".

During the play, a child monk bridges the gap between individuals and the community. "I'm extremely interested in communication and the ways people understand people.

"Because I've always been in the middle of misunderstandings, and once I understood the power of the voice through dance, it made me be able to speak better.

"But part of me gets very fed up with life and wants to go and do yoga under a tree and not talk to anyone."

Cherkaoui is neither Muslim nor Catholic, although he identifies with aspects of both faiths. He also relates to many of the monks' Buddhist ideals, but says his faith is one of his own making. "As a child I just wanted to do what was right . . . the problem is you don't always know what is right and what is wrong."

He is intrigued by the contrast between Shaolin's ancient history and buildings that "feel as if they've been there forever", and young monks in their 20s who use mobile phones just as enthusiastically as any other Generation Yers.

"They are born in the here and now, so there is this interesting mix of the very ancestral, and having to deal with the world the way it is."
Ad Feedback

There's also a conflict between the monastery as a place of peace and meditation, and its status as a tourist destination.

"It's a magnet for many curious people who come for personal reasons, including my own. So I think, 'I'm here, but am I disturbing them? What can I bring in, as well as take away?' "

The difference between them - apart from the obvious ethnic and cultural divide - is that while Cherkaoui is an artist first and foremost, the monks are not. "They didn't choose the performing arts, but they still do it with a lot of love and excitement and energy."

Cherkaoui has tremendous respect for their discipline and considers them his friends after working so closely for so long.

"I would trust my life in their hands."

Sutra opens tonight at the St James Theatre as part of the New Zealand International Arts Festival.

WIN TICKETS

Here is your chance to win tickets to New Zealand International Arts Festival shows. To enter, simply email artsfest@dompost.co.nz by noon today (Friday 26 February) with the name of the show in the subject line and your name and a daytime contact phone number in the body of the email.

The winners will be contacted and can pick up their tickets from The Dominion Post.

Today's tickets are: Sutra, St James Theatre, 8pm, tonight (two double passes); Sound of Silence, tonight, 7pm (two double passes); Apollo 13: Mission Control, Downstage Theatre, tomorrow, 2pm (one double pass); Dancing on Your Grave, Pacific Blue Festival Club, tomorrow, 7.30pm.

[GeneChing]

Another rave review

Monks and Emptylanders dance at festival
John Daly-Peoples | Monday March 1, 2010 - 09:58am

New Zealand International Arts Festival
Sutra, A Journey Through Faith & Imagination
Sadlers Wells and the Shaolin Monks
St James Theatre
Until March 6

Most dancers, whether they are classical or contemporary have a certain repertoire of steps, poses and movements. These are what they use in their creative roles and are distinct from their everyday way of moving and engaging.

The Shaolin monks in “Sutra” however make use of the moves of everyday life. Their performances are an extension of their calling as traditional warrior monks with an emphasise on the learning and perfection of martial arts.

While they no longer use their martial arts skills for combat the moves they have perfected become ideal source material for contemporary dance.

The Flemish / Moroccan dancer and choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has seen the possibilities of turning the martial arts skills of the monks into a dramatic piece of contemporary dance which allows him to illuminate the life of the monks and provide a metaphor for the spread of cultural ideas.

The group of dancers have performed at over eighty venues in the past three years spending four five weeks on the road at any one time before returning to their monastery in China.

The work combines seventeen dancers with seventeen large wooden plinths which are an integral part of the dance drama. They stand for various stages of our lives; coffins, storage units, a maze, a set of skyscrapers, a Stonehenge as well as providing a sense of the unknown like the basalt totem from "2001 A Space Odyssey”.

The dancers perform a variety of precisely timed routines some of which have all the brilliance and bravura of a Broadway musical or one of the Cirque style acts. They cavort between, on, over and with the wooden plinths which take on a life of their own.

This minimalist and clever interplay between dancers and their props provides a sense of ritual with repeated routines and carefully arranged and rearranged plinths.

At times they are carefully measured, delicate and slow while at other timers they are frenetic and dramatic. As the sequences develop, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is seen to be something of a pupil trying to learn and understand the monk’s practice. He is Everyman or Mr. European attempting to understand the skills of the monks and their approach to life.

The way they perform with references to their past ands present culture has similarities to the way that Maori have created contemporary haka routines such as “Ihi Frenzy”

For much of the first part of the work Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui sits to one side with a small model of the plinths which he rearranges as the dancers rearrange the full size ones. In this, he seems to acting not just as the director but as some omnipotent presence, directing their lives.

The music by Szymon Brzoska is played on Western style instruments and while essentially contemporary European in style it is flecked through with hints of medieval, gypsy, and Asian themes.

Another of the dance / theatre works being performed is the New Zealand piece “Mtyland” (Empty Land / Mighty Land) which has some similarities to “Sutra” with various acts taking there names from the Tao of War. It is also a work which seeks to understand the nature of the world.

The performers in “Mtyland” speak occasionally but whether they are making sense is another matter. As a young woman sitting close by remarked “They look like a bunch of mental health patients.”

Many of the sequences could be straight out of Becket and one of the opening sequences is reminiscent of a Vladimir and Estragon interchange. The work is littered with sayings and aphorisms, their meaningless slowly building into a controlled Chaos of ideas just as the random dances begins to take on a sense of order.

The dancers are all incredibly athletic, many of their amazing leaps seem to be frozen in time and their poses are eloquent expressions of emotions. There is a great deal of dancing focussed around action and reaction, movement and rest, silence and cacophony.

[GeneChing]

Still hoping for some U.S. dates...

Preview: Sutra at Sadler's Wells
03 March, 2010
by: Benjamin Goode

Inspirational choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaouie brings Shaolin monks to Sadler's Wells. Ben Goode briefs us on what to expect.

Sidi Larbi Cherkaouie, a Belgian choreographer with Moroccan and Flemish heritage, is nothing if not the sum of his parts. His work often marries diverse ideas, theatrical strains, distinct media platforms and eclectic styles all in a high wire balancing act of a multicultural, innovative, far-ranging exploration of the human form. But above all, his work is a voyage of personal, cultural and spiritual discovery.

Sutra, his 2008 masterpiece, is no exception. Returning to Sadler's Wells for ten performances this March with Ali Thabet in the role that Sidi himself originally occupied, Sutra is a subtle, masterful and artistic exploration of the philosophy and faith behind the Shaolin tradition. It explores Shaolin's alignment with the inherent physicality of the Kung Fu discipline and its position within the contemporary national and foreign context. What it amounts to is an irresistible show of astounding physical accomplishment and touching sensibility.

After opening to critical acclaim last year, Sutra makes its triumphant return to London town this month. If you didn't see it first time round (or even if you did), I implore you to take advantage of one of the many cultural delights this city has to offer, and see Antony Gormley, Sidi Larbi Cherkaouie and the monks of the Shaolin temple present Sutra.

Sutra runs at Sadler's Wells from 13th March to 26th March 2010

NZ festival puttin' on the risk
* Rosemary Sorensen
* From: The Australian
* March 04, 2010 12:00AM

A TRUISM of arts festivals is that they enable artistic directors to think outside the box.

In big cities, which already receive a steady flow of new work, a festival can seem like the finals of a home and away season (more of the same, only up a notch), but in small cities it is a crucial opportunity to show productions that otherwise might never come to town. In those places, therefore, it is even more vital that outside-the-box thinking is encouraged.

For Lissa Twomey, artistic director of the New Zealand International Arts Festival in Wellington, thinking outside the box was not just a guiding principle but a leitmotif for her opening last weekend. Guided by her long experience with the Sydney Festival and her now shrewd understanding of the NZ audience, Twomey put together a triumphant program of calculated risk-taking.

Sutra, for example, could be subtitled Thinking Outside the Box. This production, created for Sadler's Wells in London, has a set designed by visual artist Antony Gormley that features 21 lidless, coffin-sized boxes. Shaolin monks and a Western dancer (a role shared by director Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and assistant choreographer Ali Ben Lotfi Thabet) move in and out of these boxes, and move the boxes themselves, creating shapes that evoke images, that evoke ideas, that dissolve and reshape into some other image.

Cherkaoui, a Moroccan Belgian, was invited to spend several months at the Shaolin Temple in Henan Province in China, to create a dance work that uses in new ways the now well-known kung-fu martial arts movements that are part of the monks' training. The result is a revelation, renovating what has become almost conventional to Western eyes, and therefore probably misunderstood, with stylish theatricality. At one point, the out-of-the-box metaphor is actually literalised and made visible: The Western dancer, whose box is made from a heavier, more durable but less adaptable material, finds himself stuck half in and half out of his box, trying to drag it around with the same dashing energy as the monks. You have to be outside the box, sometimes, to see how things can be changed.

While the monks were moving boxes, in Wellington's main auditorium nearby at the Michael Fowler Centre, in the heart of the cultural hub around the harbour, a very different kind of risk was being taken.

Twomey received some criticism following her first festival two years ago for not providing enough classical music. Programming a famous European orchestra to give a festival cachet used to be a standard in Australia, but as the festival concept developed, along with the desire to bring in more diverse audiences, this became less of an imperative.

Twomey put hybrid and non-conformist theatre high on her priority list for this year, but she has also programmed a Wagner concert (with NZ tenor Simon O'Neill) and two concerts by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, in Wellington Town Hall in the third week of this 24-day festival, an Australasian debut for the ensemble. As well, she made sure her opening night provided a big blast of classical music. Inviting Vladimir Ashkenazy across from Sydney to conduct, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra played Mahler's Symphony No. 8, with as many children, choirs, extra brass and whatever else they could fit on to the stage.

Then they took the performance out of the box of the auditorium and into the neighbouring Civic Square. Festival organisers admitted they had no idea if five, 50 or 500 people would turn up. This being Wellington, if it was a windy night, the experience would not be very attractive.

But the gods smiled on the festival and Friday night was perfect, with the live feed playing to a packed square, upwards of 1000 people sitting and standing rapt by the performance. For a city of 180,000, to have something like 3000 people at a Mahler Symphony created a brilliant start to the arts festival. The screen was too small, a forgiveable mistake given how uncertain the outcome, but Wellington responded with such gusto, you may imagine the concert and live-feed to Civic Square will happen again.

Wellington is possibly the perfect city -- size-wise, and given its physical attributes -- for an arts festival. The venues are not great, but every space is within walking distance, and each one has a personality that feeds into the festival atmosphere. On the opening weekend you could see the path-finding audience-interactive Apollo 13 production at a little, intimate, unglamorous theatre at one end of the city, followed by the New Riga Theatre from Latvia performing its wordless homage to Simon and Garfunkel and the 1970s, Sound of Silence, in a concert venue along the quay, down near the centre of town.

The magnificent Te Papa Museum anchors everything in Wellington and even the small, well-appointed black-box theatre inside that building is used during the festival. Footnote Dance, based in Wellington, performed its high-energy Mtyland in Te Papa's Soundings Theatre across the opening weekend, and a French company, Arcosm, then moved into the space to perform a production called Echoa across the second weekend.

Tickets to many events are in the $NZ50 to $NZ100 range, but audiences are keen, as every venue was packed.

Twomey has increased the number of free events for this year's festival, conscious of extending her reach to more of the Wellington population.

A clever programming choice, Compagnie Beau Geste's Transports Exceptionnels (another of the large French contingent at Twomey's festival) provided another out-of-the-box performance in the parkland alongside Te Papa. We have had dancing earth-moving machines here in performances for many years, but in this 20-minute piece a dancer performs a duet with a digger to the sound of Maria Callas singing. This is a strong idea, nicely executed, and the work is rumoured to be heading to Sydney soon.

Also coming to Sydney soon is the brilliant Apollo 13, and also rumoured is a visit this year of the Shaolin monks production, Sutra, to several Australian cities.

If you have the chance, don't miss any of them.

The New Zealand International Arts Festival runs until March 21.

Rosemary Sorensen travelled to Wellington as a guest of the NZ International Arts Festival and Tourism New Zealand.

[GeneChing]

somefink? Is that an NZ term for something?

Sutra at Sadler's Wells
16 March, 2010
by: Benjamin Goode

Ben Goode samples Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Shaolin inspired masterpiece at Sadler's Wells

The inherent physicality of the Shaolin tradition lends itself incredibly well to the theatre of dramatic spectacle that is performance art, the operative word here being 'art'. This is no Cottles circus on Brighton's pebble beach. From the very title, Sutra (Sanskrit for somefink – in this case referring to the Buddhist canonical scriptures) we should know that this is high brow stuff.

A sparse set consisting of 17 wooden caskets (designed by celebrated British sculptor Antony Gormley) are used by the Shaolin monks with no small amount of ingenuity to unravel the enigma of the Shaolin Monastery. As the bodies flow between the solid wooden caskets the synthesis of distinct art forms is always empathetic and never incongruous. It's an affecting combination.

Sutra has a narrative of sorts, a physical narrative devoid of words, which only serves to make the connection between performers and audience a more intuitive and emotional one. The protagonist (Ali Ben Lofti Thabet) is led on a physical and spiritual journey of self discovery by a young Shaolin boy (for the exemplary Shi Yanzhi) who helps him circumnavigate the pitfalls of a hitherto unknown mystical quantity.

On his voyage he is frustrated, intimidated and humorously shown up. He comes face to face with a variety of Shaolin styles, each an arresting display of centuries old physical tradition merged with contemporary dance. It's sometimes aggressive, sometimes playful, but always jaw-dropping in texture, form and suspension.

As with so much of Sidi Larbi's work, Sutra emphatically succeeds in borrowing from disparate forms of physical theatre, in this case contemporary dance and the Shaolin discipline. It also manages to retain the aspects so eminently transferable to the stage and the rationale of a western theatre going audience. The entire production is shrouded with just enough mystery to engage our desire to be a part of something greater than ourselves.


The culmination of Sutra is as powerful an ending as I have seen. As they triple back flip, somersault and cartwheel with fancy free abandon, one gets the impression, amid all the applause, that it has been as enjoyable a journey for them as for us.

[GeneChing]

Cheryl Cole enjoys kung-fu in Islington
Posted on 22 March 2010 by Sarah Rainey

Cheryl Cole was spotted at Sadler’s Wells this weekend enjoying a performance by kung-fu monks.

The Girls Aloud star was reportedly at the performance by 17 monks from the Shaolin Temple in China on the lookout for dancers for her next video.

Cole, who broke up with Chelsea footballer husband Ashley earlier this month, has been dancing since she was at school. She has demonstrated impressive flair for complex dance routines in her two singles Fight for this Love and Parachute.

Comedian Rufus Hound won BBC 1’s Let’s Dance for Sport Relief with a parody of Cole’s number one hit, Fight for this Love.

Cole’s appearance at Sadler’s Wells suggests that she is looking for yet another different dance style for her next single.

Sutra, choreographed by iconic dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, runs at Sadler’s Wells until Saturday 27 March.

Shaolin monks as backup dancers for Cheryl Cole.