Moon Dance, Performed by weiwei ma, 2025.
The 25th Anniversary Performance of “KyLin’s Garden,” by Kun-Yang Lin and signature ensemble piece, “Traces of Brush.”
It traces back to all the sketches since 2016, watching KYL/D in its 25th Anniversary performance.
In the 25th Anniversary Home Season KYL/D is searching for the center between multiple modes of representation. In the dance between the literary form, and the sculptural form, there is Chi.
I can compare a number of performances to discover a coalescing representation of solos and duets, or excerpts from Kun-Yang’s repertoire for total art for an ensemble of dance artists. In “KyLin’s Garden,” a Philadelphia Premiere from 1997, it is most hypnotizing, because it is saturated with an allusion to the 2022 World Premiere of “Fish & Girl.” The implementation of artifacts in Kun-Yang Lin’s choreography is most satisfying when the work is self-referential.
I have been watching how the dancers personalities connect the dots in places there appears to be like a constellation for the audience to observe. A deep exploration into their studio practice of Chi is a starting point.
Evalina ‘Wally’ Carbonell created a siren-like sound, her choreography for the company called, “Shrill” was a collaboration between Weiwei Ma, and a Taiwanese sculptor, Yuyu Yang whose piece in the Grounds for Sculpture spoke to the impetus for Wei-Wei Ma’s, “Dragon’s Shrill in the Cosmic Void.”
“Shrill,” with a projection of a wade in the water. It created a wake in the waters with swirls of orange on the blue silver backdrop. I imagine possibilities for the reflection of “Ocean Waves” choreographed by Kun-Yang Lin from 2021, and going as far back as Wally’s 2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival production, “MILK” exploring the nature of the dancer’s maternity, and the substance for life shared between mother and child. The dancers dive right into this sculptural dance like quicksilver.
Many dance artists studied with Kun-Yang Lin and we celebrated KYL/D’s 25th Anniversary Home Season. The design for “KyLin’s Garden,” brings awareness to our senses, and surroundings together into community. The relationship of many artists that helped evolve the company shows tremendous reach and impact from the choreography of Kun-Yang Lin. In the establishment of KyLin’s Garden, or 麒麟 is a mythical creature from ancient Chinese folklore. The company is motivated to share modern Chinese contemporary dance, and bridge Eastern and Western philosophies. The unicorn or “kylin” begins to tell Lin’s own story. Bringing the company to Philadelphia, and specifically to South Philly to explore the themes that founded this Asian American modern dance company. That being the difficulties that carry the socio-reality for most immigrants in the U.S today. This shared critique on culture brings with it reform entrenched in how we identify with the language, landscape, and personal family structures.
In “KyLin’s Garden,” the unicorn was as a myth in the animal kingdom to exist like natural phenomenon. The program welcomed the reflection of past performances wonderfully. Revisions for 2023 dancers, brought to conclusion the final piece, “Traces of Brush” In many layers, the symbolic joy in envisioning of lands, dragons, unicorns, etc. and a poetic conclusion to the evening with a poem and a movement on stage inspired by Chinese calligraphy.
The unicorn happens to be a very intricate design to this company, and entrenched in the history of human invention, half-beast, and half-beauty. “KyLin’s Garden,” performed by Evalina “Wally” Carbonell, was calculated to a pristine-short hypnotic piece. For the duration of which, we hear a voice, and it comes from a far off unknown place. “Wake up in your dream, and you’re in a waking dream,” the voice continues on about walking on water. We meditate on the circular movement, a golden talisman, and almost pharaoh-esque, like an Egyptian riddle about the Sphynx.
A phenomenal piece in perspective with a rich cultural exchange across many lands. The “Love Song” is presented with Sophie Malin and Robert Burden for a 2023 revision for the first time with a male-female duet. In discovering one’s own sexuality, the dancers appear to be inseparable.
The event reconvened with Weiwei Ma’s “Dragon” the sister project to “Shrill.” These two pieces showcased the impact of continual rehearsing of modern dance in Philadelphia. The connection to an earlier work by Wally and Weiwei, called “BLOOD,” from 2022 shows striking similarities of grit, and grounded in ritual. This Pas-De-Deux from 2022 was restaged for KYL/D Gala & Benefit 2025.
The women’s perspective collectively coincides with working over the stimulus of bodily fluids. If extrapolating meaning from these three dances were to make a kind of trilogy, the elements given precedence are, water, blood, and milk. These are modern concepts that break away from the classical form with a refreshed sense of femininity.
Naturally, the remix of choreography, observations on embodiment of spirals into a common theme. “Traces of Brush,” follows up with a reading of spoken word by Ken Metzner of a poem from Myrna Patterson. The didactic essence of life’s journey, mythmaking, multiculturalism, and giving form to our wildest dreams comes with the transfer of energy. In the ancient art form of Chinese Calligraphy, characters in ink dance across the page. “Gestures surface. Dancers lean, reach, dip, thrust.” Poetry created after witnessing a dance choreographed by Lin.
In the signature ensemble work, “Traces of Brush,” (2004) redirects our attention to imagine, the wielding of a fan dance by Weiwei, and this single act of creation by the ensemble represents myth-making and human creativity. The nature of the piece summons the 2018 Fall Home Season, as well, called mask (MianJu) performed by Lui Mo. This piece integrated Chinese calligraphy as well as in the 2018 commissioned piece for Lui Mo. The faculties of speech and calligraphy become larger movements on a dance stage. Following Lin’s aesthetic choices through the years reveals the change that influences his movement and form.
The experimental composition of the next piece created for KYL/D’s senior dance artists in 2022, “Wind 2,” comes to fruition with the help of three choreographers working together. Gus Solomon Jr., and Pallabi Chakravorty during the pandemic with Lin, that gave one another tasks in conversations with their bodies, “Where Is My B-O-D-Y.” The piece was about change, and aging to gesture to the body. These fellow artists working with physical limitations and aging bodies discovered the epitome which became “Wind,” a very immersive dance piece. Granted, in 2021 the premiere of Wind performed by Kun-Yang Lin, shared virtually to an empty auditorium, a modern proscenium theatre that seats 936, that evening KYL/Dancers and stage crew were the only inhabitants. The epitomical lighting switch on March 10th, 2023 was equally effective when the lights of the Mandell Theatre shined back on the audience creating an unusual show of shadows and bright highlights.
WIND Performed by Kun-Yang Lin, 2021