Review: Trace of Belief, EdFringe

Trace of Belief is an exquisite dance piece from Chun Dance, playing at Assembly @ Dance Base as part of EdFringe’s Taiwan Season. The performance explores the place of belief and ritual in our lives, considering our consciousness of religion and spirituality in human existence and how we respond in both an individual and collective capacity. What better way to explore such a profound concept than with the universally understandable form of dance?

An ensemble of six dancers blend together stylised imagery and movement that overlap ideas of traditional and modern, past and present, religious belonging and secular separation. Rather than delivering a strict narrative, the piece seems to create a space in which to perceive and contemplate these themes.

Beginning as a collective, swaying to the sound of dripping water, the dancers’ bodies display similar properties to that element. As the piece proceeds, they move together in waves and swirls, or separate into individual ‘droplets’, paralleling the polar possibilities of power and gentleness that water offers, while articulating human interactions with spirituality. The shapes transform to suggest temple processions and religious conformity, represented with compelling precision in group movement. Bodily distortions hint at Butoh dance and infer ideas of the individual breaking free from restrictive bounds. More meditative moments feel organic, hypnotic, sweeping the audience along in a rhythmic, repetitive flow as the sound of birdsong or beating drums fills the space with diverse, sometimes primitive energies. It’s compellingly engaging.

The aesthetic of the production is beautiful, enhancing a realm where one can immerse oneself in fluid contemplation. Subtle colour and evocative haze hint at the natural world around us. Careful design choices accentuate varying ambiances, allowing us to perceive a spiritual, sensory world or the ritualistic domain of the temple. There’s ambiguity as almost mythical figures emerge when humans combine to transform into animalistic creatures, or there’s a reimagining as they mask and redefine their human faces using feather fans, symbolic of power and purification in Taoism.

It’s the human body that is the single constant throughout the dance and which traces a presence to the very end. There’s a moving vulnerability come the final sequence when a single dancer strips off her outer garments, staring defiantly and exposed at the audience, almost challenging us to see we have come full circle from an ethereal beginning to a starkly human conclusion, and it feels bold.

This is an international debut for what is an utterly striking production and it is joyfully impressive. I can only hope that we are going to see more of choreographer Hsieh Yi-Chun‘s work in the UK in the near future.

Produced by Chun Dance
Choreography by Hsieh Yi-Chun

Trace of Belief runs at Assembly @ Dance Base until Saturday 24 August as part of the Taiwan Season at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.