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Ancient China goes High Tech
VANCOUVER --
After three years of gathering dust, the Vancouver theatre formerly known as the
Ford has
been polished up in preparation for tomorrow night's grand reopening. Two weeks
ago, the air smelled of fresh paint and the lobby carpets were being ripped up,
while 97 young dancers from Beijing tumbled down the aisles, twirled across the
stage and chattered excitedly in Mandarin during the second day of rehearsals.
"Sorry, it's still a mess," says
Dennis Law, the Hong Kong-born surgeon and former All-American fencer who bought
Garth Drabinsky's 1,849-seat monument to outsized ambition with his three
brothers for $7.75-million last October. "It took us a long time to find a
carpet that works. We didn't want to deviate too far from Moshe Safdie's design.
But you can't find the old carpet. They just don't make the same colour any
more."
Other than a hands-on approach to producing,
the carpet is about the only thing Law has in common with the Toronto theatre
impresario who built the theatre for $27-million. When Drabinsky unveiled The
Ford Centre in 1995, he offended many by imperiously declaring that his flashy
showcase for Livent's mega-musicals would prevent Vancouver from "slipping
into the mire of banality." Audiences stayed away in droves and the
theatre's doors finally slammed shut three years later, one of many casualties
in the company's Byzantine bankruptcy.
Law, in contrast, has enjoyed a warm welcome
from the community, which has applauded his vision of tapping the city's diverse
cultural base and using the theatre as a launching pad for Broadway-bound Asian
stage shows. With backing from their parents, business interests in commercial
real estate, a company that makes Christmas products for the North American
market, a proven track record of successful East-West cultural exchanges (past
beneficiaries include Opera Colorado and the Beijing Dance Academy) and the
experience of producing an MGM-distributed action-fantasy film that was
reportedly the highest-budget American motion picture ever made in China, it
appear that the four brothers (all Denver, Colo.-based surgeons and active arts
philanthropists) have the wherewithal to realize their dream.
Their new gateway to the Pacific, renamed The
Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts, opens tomorrow night with the North
American premiere of what Law is calling the first "action musical."
Described as "more than Riverdance, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and
Cirque du Soleil combined," Of Heaven and Earth is a high-tech
interpretation of an ancient Chinese love story about a goddess who falls in
love with a lowly cowherd, igniting a war between heaven and earth.
"It's not just a first for Vancouver,
but a first for the world," says Law, the family's energetic eldest
brother, who is co-producing the show with his wife, Moon
Lee Law, a well-known actress in Hong Kong. Law says that he
adapted the story himself, wrote the script, was responsible for hiring all the
artistic elements and supervised the composer.
After premiering the production in Beijing's
Poly Theatre last summer, Law hopes the combination of ancient and modern dance
with martial arts and acrobatics will be as new for the West as it was for the
Chinese. Indeed, Law's ambitious ways of putting on a show baffled the Chinese
government when he tried to get passports for his 97 cast members, culled from
the Beijing Song and Dance Company, the China Acrobatic Circus and the Beijing
Opera Theatre.
"It was a bureaucratic nightmare,"
says Law, who was forced to delay his opening night for two weeks. "We were
bringing members from three different troupes. The Chinese bureaucrats had never
dealt with that before. They didn't have the algorithm in their process."
He points to a group of young men practising
back flips in the aisle. "These three came from the same gym that trained
Jet Li." He nods to another young girl who appears to be no older than 10.
"She's a phenomenal swordsmen."
Law is just as proud of the high-tech
gadgetry he's brought in for the show. There will be an illuminated floor
"that's never been seen before," a canopy ceiling that opens up to the
fly galleries when heaven invades earth, state-of-the-art digital projection
onto a 30-foot screen at the back of the stage and Dolby surround-sound
speakers, coupled to an audio system that will create a depth to the music and
sound effects "more intense than the biggest Schwarzenegger movie."
Of Heaven and Earth is more than just a
high-tech spectacle, says Law. Although it has no dialogue, he says the musical
has a great narrative and a cohesive plot. "All 19 acts are different. It's
not just Irish Dance, Irish Dance, Irish Dance from beginning to end. I've tried
to popularize the story and transcend the old-fashioned presentation, without
making it hokey."
Enter Tim
Yip, the Oscar-winning art director who helped Chow Yun-Fat fly over a
bamboo forest in Ang Lee's blockbuster martial-arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon. Law hired Yip (before he won the Academy Award) to lend his artistic
integrity to the costumes and art design.
"It's what we call the Yip Effect,"
says Law. "He's provided a beautiful, yet uncluttered simplicity to the
design."
Yip, who was in Vancouver for only two days
to ensure that his costumes, makeup, sets and lighting were in order before
returning to Beijing to work on a new film, says the feel of the show will be
similar in some ways to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
"It has the same simplicity," says
Yip, grinning under his baseball cap and looking much younger than his 40 years.
"Crouching Tiger is like a Chinese painting, using different kinds of grey,
the water with the paper. But this one is so different. That one uses classical
Chinese tastes, on a big scale. This uses Chinese material to make a more modern
stage [show]."
Yip says his design, which will pair ocean
sound effects with abstract designs projected onto the screen and bright lights
that burn with the intensity of the sun, was inspired by the sky.
"In Chinese myth, they talk all about
sky. The sky inside your body, the real sky. They talk about the goddess of the
moon. I use the knowledge we [now] have -- we know how big the universe is --
and bring this kind of experience to an old Chinese story. I want the audience
to feel how big the universe is. The size is so great and how the feeling is so
strong and the sky is so mysterious."
His ideas for the costumes came from the
Beijing Opera. He points to the stage, where heavenly warriors in long red
aprons, winged crowns and wide shoulder pads are duelling with earthling cowboys
in rustic loincloths.
As with the costumes, Yip has worked with the
choreographer to modernize the gestures and poses to add emotion and help
narrate the story for Western audiences. "Some of the costumes will be
traditional. But in Chinese dance, the personality of the actor is hidden. You
don't know who the guy is under that big costume.
"So I use a lot of modern dance. And
when you see the movement, you will feel more emotion. It adds personality and
human emotions to these characters."
Yip, a Renaissance man of sorts who trained
as a photographer and is now working on a novel, an avant-garde fashion show in
Taipei, an exhibition of his costumes in Paris, an opera for the Madrid opera
house and another opera to premiere in Marseilles, says that after he won the
Academy Award, he decided to commit the next five years to working on projects
that would help bring Chinese art to the world.
"I feel so sad because the Chinese
people have lost themselves. They always want to get ideas from outside China,
but not from themselves.
"I have the power to do some things. I
want to push things that are new internationally."
Yip believes Of Heaven and Earth, like
Crouching Tiger, has the potential to translate Chinese culture for North
American mainstream audiences. The element of the show he's most proud of is its
energy.
"It feels like a new generation is
coming," say Yip, who believes it's time for North America to move beyond
the Cultural Revolution and Mao as the only symbols of China. "The people
in this show are so young and powerful. You can feel the energy in the dance. I
want people to feel that power.
"Ha!" he says, looking on as the
rest of the auditorium cheers a sword juggler on stage.
"Can you feel it? This kind of
performance will bring the audience together with high emotion. I hope people
will like it."
Of
Heaven and Earth runs at the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts,
777 Homer St., from tomorrow to June 9. For tickets: 604-280-4444. By
Alexandra Gill
The Globe & Mail
May 28, 2002 – Print Edition, Page R3
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