Performance and residency project
Co-presented with The Five College Dance Department
Yasuko Yokoshi’s art-making explores the complex interconnectedness of culture and history that frames our perspective of contemporary life. Her inspiration for Tyler Tyler comes from The Tale of the Heike, a classic 12th-century Japanese epic of warring clans that documents the intense desire for domination and the inevitable fall from power. The central theme of the stories – the Buddhist law of impermanence – has special resonance for Yokoshi; born and raised in Hiroshima, she was often reminded as a child of the ephemeral nature of human life. These stories continue to resonate in our own times as ambition and pride continue to spawn war and greed.
“The sound of the Gion Shoja bells echoes the impermanence of all things;
the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline.
The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night;
the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.”
– From the opening of The Tale of the Heike (translated by Helen Craig McCullough)
Housing for the artists in Tyler Tyler is supported in part by the UMass Hotel at the Campus Center.
My favorite components were definitely the fan usage and the live music. The audible opening and shutting of the fans as well as the silver sheen along with the vocalizations, drum, guitar, and wind instrument added a significant traditional culture component.
Not something I would recommend…I’ll leave it at that.
I really disliked it. I would have left at intermission if there had been one. I realize that there was reason for the slow movements, and I probably should have read about Tyler Tyler before I went to the performance, but much of it did not fit my view of what a dance performance is. I admit that this may be due to my being narrow, but I found it long and boring. I would recommend it to somebody that likes the subject matter, but not for somebody like me that just likes to watch modern dance companies.
First of all, I was able to (had time to) read in the Program Notes on p.24 about the central theme of the stories, namely, the Buddhist law of impermanence, but unfortunately I still needed to be enlightened as to where in the dance and theatre pieces this would come across. Like I’ve sometimes experienced before a chamber orchestra concert or a Baroque concert, a pre-performance introduction and/or explanation would have been very helpful! Perhaps the theme of impermanence did register for me somewhat with the musical parts, although for goodness sake, please next time warn us about the eardrum-shattering flute sound!!! The guitar and voice were lovely. My favorite parts were the \seamless blending\ of the Kabuki dances with the modern dance pieces, and I thought each of the dancers (both Japanese and U.S.) performed professionally and quite wonderfully! This was my first introduction to Kabuki dance; I loved the movement and effect (and lighting!) of the fans and the dancers. I think it would have helped if the pieces had been shortened, including shortening some of the \postmoderne theatre\ techniques! I think the costumes were perfect. I liked the video projection of the young girl in the water (?), but what did it mean?–that swimming in the ocean gives pleasure, yet innocent life can be snuffed out in an instant due to nature’s powerful forces–hence the impermanence of things??? And was the use of the words \hell\, \shit\, and \fuck\ really necessary? Could the point (which I think I missed) have been demonstrated in some other way, or with perhaps a different choice of words?? The xylophone and mini-grand piano didn’t make sense for me; couldn’t actual Gion Shoja bells (not sure what they are) have been used instead? Were the man and woman (U.S. dancers), who danced superbly, by the way, depicting his desire for domination over her? It happens here in the west, this violence towards women, and I’ve heard it happens to Japanese women, hence–an aspect of similarity of cultures (?) Their movements were amazingly fluid, as in the Kabuki dances, and so I guess that too demonstrated a transference of cultures. So many aspects about the choreography and direction to admire and appreciate, and yet, and yet, I’m afraid a lot of it went over my head. I wished I’d been more prepared….that would have helped me better appreciate the overall performance.
I agree with the writers above who suggested that either more program notes or some description ahead of time would have been helpful.
That said, I didn’t feel that I needed to know “what it meant” — I felt willing to go along with it as a dream almost. At times, that was because I was falling asleep due to low lighting and repetitive movements, which I don’t think was the creator’s intention. I’d missed the fact that it was a premier — I had felt several times during the performance that the choreographer needed to rework parts to eliminate some of the more repetitive contemporary movements (not the traditional) and that sometimes it seemed as if she were trying to0 hard to be clever. Having seen Cedar Lake a few nights before, I never felt — or rarely — that things were contrived, but I did feel that way periodically last evening. Perhaps with continued performances, some of these sections might get attention and change.
My most lingering memory is of the final section, which could have seemed contrived, but didn’t to me. I loved the most traditional dancer in sweats, the singer with the little piano and the Perfect Day lyrics — I don’t know why except it was my kind of clever. I went out singing in his rhythms and came across the guitarist leaving the theater, who heard me singing and we had a momentary duet. That was a perfect ending to such a performance for me.
I attended the concert thinking this would be a sizable professional dance troupe. I should have read more about it before buying tickets. I found the choreography very repetitive and slow-moving and felt the portrayal of the American culture very stereotypical and at the end, even ugly. Certain parts, especially the domination scene before the end, felt very forced, as if the choreographer was trying too hard to impress us with her creativity without having the a sufficient vocabulary of movement. At times I could appreciate the beautiful meditative aspect of the Asian movements, but after awhile, even for a meditation, I would have liked more variety.
Perhaps having seen the outstanding Cedar Lake performance a few nights earlier led to my having higher expectations for this dance performance, but whatever the reason, I was very disappointed in this performance and would have left early if I had had the chance to.
I enjoyed the combination of Kabuki and modern dance elements, as well as traditional Japanese music and singing with contemporary music and song. I was reminded of the American theater director Eric Hill who used Kabuki theater elements in some of the Shakespeare plays that he directed.
I’m sorry but I did not enjoy this performance at all. I’d like to believe that I’m not a complete philistine and am capable of appreciating art that is — well, more “cerebral” but I guess I prefer something more on the lines of Cedar Lake when it comes to dance. I don’t want to see people walking across the stage — even I can do that. And there is no need for profanity in any kind of artistic endeavor.
I’m sorry to say that we left half way through. I had bought the dance series so had not looked too closely at this one, and had my kids there and it was just beyond them. I found it just too obscure, and too dark for me. While I did appreciate some of the music and sounds and the really interesting live instruments (except for ditto on the painful flute sound and the pinging high pitched sound on the recorded music), and the juxtaposition of the two cultures. I couldn’t find any meaning in some of the pieces or the dance moves; there didn’t seem to be any particular connection or fluidity to the moves in some of the pieces. I just wasn’t prepared for this and couldn’t access it enough as a family.
I really liked Tyler Tyler. There was a beautiful melancholy mood that read perfectly through the music and the movement. The part where all five of the dancers were onstage in a diagonal dancing with fans was one of my favorite parts, as was the segments with the tiny piano. I also like the rather narrative part when one of the female dancers was speaking into the mike along to the guitar and drum. I do think that the narrative element could have been slightly more prominent and maybe a little less cryptic. I liked that the dance was often perplexing but I think people have a desire for narrative to be accessible. Overall, two thumbs up!
I liked the performance a lot and appreciate the FAC’s and Asian Arts Program’s willingness to challenge its audience. Please keep doing that. Yes, a pre-dance lecture would have been very helpful. Yes, I frequently wondered what cultural cues or layers of traditions I was missing but in the end, even forgetting the basis for the piece, I decided to let go and absorb it as dance in and of itself. I appreciated the willingness of the choreographer and dancers to mutually cross over the cultural divide. We need more of that in our world. The music was great.
I really enjoyed Tyler Tyler. I could definitely see the story portrayed through each dance/video/song. The emotions that came from each dance were beautiful. my favorite part was when the “American” couple were dancing in sync at the beginning of the piece, and the dance where the emperor was in the middle and there was a character at each corner.
creative, the dance story is a bit confusing. the changes in emotion is obscure, which needs improvement. the color changes is clear and help to convey the theme of the dance.Overall, not bad show, but can be better.