Preserving art
The Magic Flute is one of my favorite operas, and I recently saw it at the Met, so I was very excited to see it performed in a different way on Tuesday night. I knew before walking into the theatre that it would be different than any performances I had seen before, but I don’t think I knew just how different the Cambodian Dance version of Mozart’s famous opera could be. The story was slightly different, but I could still recognize the plot line, despite the cutting of scenes and changing of character names. The costumes were different, seeing as they were traditional Cambodian costumes, and the lack of scenery was unexpected. This was not that hard to adjust to, though. It was just how traditional the performance was, in regard to the music and dancing; how much it remained unchanged for the audience at the Joyce Theatre, that surprised me the most. I think that, because the troupe was performing in America, I had assumed the Cambodian art form would have had to sacrifice some of their more traditional aspects to do the show. The dancing was so slow and precise. It wasn’t altered to resemble the theatrical dancing that generally appeals to the American audience. While the dance group took on a non-traditional story to perform, they held strong to the way they had learned to put on a show. It impressed me that in such a quickly changing world, where there is always a pressure to do what is new or more common, they had resisted. Their dedication to their artwork, and the preservation of their dance form, was admirable.
In the same way I felt respect for the dancing group for preserving their tradition, I felt a respect for Nadine Orenstein. She was on a similar mission as the Cambodian dancers. She, like the dancers, wanted to preserve artwork from the past to make sure that future generations could learn from it. Like the troupe, Ms. Orenstein has to present the artwork to viewers who are not generally familiar with it, and find a way to make it appealing to them.
I don’t think Zhang Huan and the dance troupe have too much in common. I stated in an earlier post that I felt Huan changed his artwork upon coming to America to appeal to Americans rather than his own curiosity. I think that the troupe has changed very little, and it wasn’t to appeal to Americans so much as it was to spread the knowledge of their traditional dancing.