A refreshing amount of original thinking was on display in the new experimental contemporary dance company AMPM Movement Theatre’s maiden show. Staged at Kwa Tsing Theatre from Aug 30 to Sept 1, You? Choreograph? lived up to the promise of unconventionality and mild sarcasm implied in its title. Seasoned choreographer-dancer Alice Ma, who performed solo, had invited three stage designers to try their hands at choreographing a piece each for the production. Happily for Ma, all three — set and costume designer Bill Cheung, sound designer Leung Po-wing and lighting designer Lawmanray — were excited at the prospect of stepping outside their comfort zones and did not need much persuading.
The scene is set in a black box theater. The audience sits in small clusters around a rotating triangular platform, which is bare but has an industrial feel about it, as the machinery underneath and the lighting rigs overhead are exposed.
For the first piece, titled Descent and choreographed by Cheung, miniature sculptures of highrise buildings and boats — a nod to two of Hong Kong’s generic features — embedded in chunky rock pieces are suspended from the rigs. As the suspended sculptures are made to swing, rather vigorously, Ma makes repeated attempts to contain the movements — using both her arms to grab some of the pieces while trying to hook a foot around another — but keeps failing to hold on to the whole lot at the same time. Descent could be a modern re-telling of the myth of Sisyphus, drawing attention to both the futility of trying to achieve the impossible as well as the significance of never giving up, despite the odds.
The second piece, rather mysteriously titled IOA, sees the dancer interacting with an automated puppet. The head sitting atop its fluorescent pink torso is without skin, and yet the face seems to wear an expression that is close to human. What the puppet lacks in terms of an abdomen and legs is more than made up for by its exceptionally long hands.
Conceptualized and choreographed by Leung, the piece explores the relationship between man and machines. The power dynamic between the two is depicted as similar to that between humans, with both taking turns to exert control on the other. Sometimes the dancer is shown to mimic the machine, and we are not sure if her character is meant to realize that she is sliding into automaton mode. Alluding to our current artificial intelligence-driven existence, these are some of the most visually arresting moments in the piece.
The third piece, choreographed by Lawmanray, probably imagines a state when the internalization of automata is complete and humans have turned into semi-bionic entities. For this one, Ma does not use any props, but wears illuminated ear embellishments that look like electrified prosthetic extensions. The glow emitted from these resonates with the LED rods inserted in the metallic frame of the stage, as the dancer uses the lights she’s wearing like paint, creating a picture that’s lit, animated and also ephemeral.
