Vertical Road

I know what you're thinking, but no, "Vertical Road" is not the name of the hottest new pre-teen Christian pop boy band.  Actually, it is the latest contemporary dance piece by world-renowned choreographer Akram Khan. Now let me just preface this by saying for the most part, my contributions will be nothing but music, with maybe a cute baby animal video every once in a while.  I really know nothing about contemporary dance.  I got tickets to go see this performance, the only one being held in China, at Guangzhou's new Opera House, mainly to see the inside of this building (the architecture has always reminded me of a Star Wars star destroyer, so I wanted to peek inside and see if I could catch a glimpse of Darth Vader).



I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find that the dance was amazing, and the soundtrack was awesome to boot.  I would spend the next few paragraphs giving an amateur review of the way the dancers used their bodies  to effectively emulate collectivism juxtaposed with isolation in postmodern society, but I think I would run out of big words and dance terminology pretty quickly, so instead, I'll just let you watch a 3 minute excerpt from the performance.

Also, here are some highlights of going to a performance like this in China specifically:

• Only about 25% of the audience actually silenced their cellphones, resulting in about 20 txt message alerts and 1 or 2 Chinese pop-song ringtones throughout the 70-minute performance.
• One loud-voiced male decided to pick up his phone and take a quick business call during the second half (hey, it serves the dancers right for not giving us an intermission!)
• Immediately following the performance, an old Chinese man stepped out into the lobby and lit up a well-deserved cigarette right in front of one of the prominent "No Smoking" signs.  Seriously though, if it's wrong for an old man to smoke indoors after having to sit through over-an-hour of abstract contemporary dance, I don't wanna be right. 

Without further adieu, the performance (take special note of the music, which I loved, and their use of the large translucent sheet in the background):