Bite (1999)
A choreographic work by Peter Chin
Mystical and sensual, rich and enigmatic, Bite is a journey toward transformation. The work unfolds as a succession of solo dances. Links among the elements of imagery, movement, music and costume give Bite a mysterious wholeness.
Bite reflects the diverse sources which inform Peter Chin's creative life. Movement is inspired by Indonesian ritual dance and other forms of Asian dance. The music for Bite, with its bass rumblings and unearthly throat-singing sounds, draws on Tibetan sources, while the rhythms of the percussion instruments are drawn from Korean ritual.
Peter Chin's desire is to create authentic rituals in which the artists perform their truths -- emotional, physical and psychic. In creating Bite he worked closely with his performers, drawing on their dream lives, on what is present in their waking lives, and through the connection of being in the rehearsal studio with them. The solos were created with this palette of intuition and presence.
Katherine Duncanson, the still figure in Bite, is a point of reference, a conduit, says Peter Chin. She becomes a symbol of the work - she does not look directly at what is going on around her; she perceives in other ways, sensing, feeling, hearing what swirls and sounds through the performing space. Bite opens with a series of incantations. One by one, the dancers appear. They speak in `discovered language', poetry which Peter Chin asked them to create.
The second, longer section of the work is the sequence of solo dances. Individually and collectively they are powerful statements. There is a tension between the earthy physicality of the movement and the spiritual search it expresses. There is a sense throughout of a classical, decorative Asian influence. The space immediately around the dancer's body is described with a range of gestures -- from delicate to incisive. In each of the solos, the dancer's body is a centre of energy. The dancers smile or grimace or flicker their eyes or fingers. Animal imagery appears as they curve through the performing space like charging beasts or serpents. Points of entry and exit from the body - eyes, veins, mouth - become focal. Images of openings in the body, metaphors of the penetration of truth or awareness, recur in the solos.
Each solo is characterized by idiosyncratic rhythms, yet the solos resonate with one another through imagery and the dancers' concentration. Mark Johnson marks territory with bow and arrows. Gestures arc out of his body in an organic way. Yvonne Ng moves as though planting her tears. Learie McNicholls bites the air, a rhythm of the hunt returning through his dance. Little fingers join, completing a circuit. Michael Sean Marye dances with weighted grace, recreating images of circles, hands joining, spinning. Carolyn Woods caroms through the space with fierce creature-like attack; her off-centred turns speak of a search for balance.
The dancers are contained within the shape of the ritual, safe to push at the bounds of their wildness. Protected within this ceremonial formality, each dancer has a moment of stillness - a moment of staring at their palm, a moment of self-realization, a new awareness of some profound, powerful truth about themselves. Each dancer bites. They bite out of a desire to satisfy the hunger to move forward, to grow in spirit. When the dancers open their mouths, the dance seems to leap out, as though the shape of what is going on inside is pushing out, claiming expression. The elusive cycles of sound created by the throat-singers, the cacophony of percussion, the soar of the singers and violin, are a raw sonic counterpoint to the physical imagery of the dance.
Bite is both a work of theatre and a ritual of transformation. The work speaks of Peter Chin's fluid vision, eloquently revealing the inner landscapes of the performers.
Carol Anderson