Dance review: Striking imagery as Shion Skye Carter crafts a reverie through paper and ink
Program features innovative work from the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award-winner, as well as soloist Juolin Lee
Shion Skye Carter’s Residuals. Photo by Lula-Belle Jedynak
Residuals (住み・墨) was at the Scotiabank Dance Centre November 4 and 5
AS SHION SKYE Carter’s Residuals (住み・墨) opens, a ray of light cuts through the dark to illuminate a strange box at centre stage, made from translucent paper. Slowly, one and then two hands reach out from the box, stretching in the light, gradually reaching in to pull out crinkly sheets of calligraphy.
It’s just one of several striking, surreal images in the emerging choreographer-dancer’s new solo, which mines her memories of Japan, and relationship with the Japanese half of her heritage, in dreamlike, associative ways.
In another indelible moment, Carter pulls an origami-like paper dress from that box, gradually donning it to dance, its delicate, fan-like folds crinkling as she moves. Here, as in so much else of the work, the whispering sound of paper is as much a part of the score as Stefan Nazarevich’s haunting music.
Carter moves amid gorgeously evocative lighting by Andie Lloyd, the squares of light across the Faris Family Studio stage sometimes resembling an array of large sheets of paper; at other moments, it takes the form of multipaned light, as if it’s filtered through a traditional Japanese screen. Sometimes that light gives way to watery reflections (in video projections by Colin Williscroft), as the present merges fluidly with the past. Later, the box unfolds into a screen that captures video of a thick brush creating ink characters on paper.
One of the most compelling dance sequences features Carter channelling memories, impressions, and moments from her grandparents’ house in rural Japan through her body; watch her squat and inhale an invisible cigarette.
Who we have met, where we have been, and what we remember make us what we are. Calligraphy is meant to be a pure expression of our souls and spirit, and in a way that is difficult to articulate in words, the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award-winner manages to show us complex inner layers of herself—without ever being literal. The piece is also just really cool to watch, with its parchment-coloured light and distinct visual language.
Dream logic is also the prevailing mood in Taiwanese-Canadian dancer Juolin Lee’s short solo Daydream Shadow, choreographed by dumb instrument Dance’s Ziyian Kwan, which opened the program. But true to Kwan’s eclectic style, it’s much more whimsical in tone—playing with and around a central furnishing: a long antique table. Like Carter, Lee takes us along on a journey of self-discovery, speaking Mandarin and English in the poetic voice-over, and moving through an eclectic score that ranges from classical piano to grooving percussion.
Two innovative and creative new voices in dance—both working their own kind of spell.
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