Monday, February 10, 2003

Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company's annual appearance at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center is timed to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year. Each year, the troupe, based in Fort Lee, brings out its holiday finery --traditional dances with flashing silks, embroidered costumes and a flying dragon with golden scales.

There are acrobats, some of whom impersonate a friendly lion, and there are beautiful women, whose smiles adorn a nimble dance with colored streamers. These portions of the program always dazzle. Yet the company, which returned to the Victoria Theater on Saturday, has more to offer than just gaudy spectacle.

Chen is a sophisticated choreographer and typically her new year program blends high-spirited folklore with samples of her contemporary work. She even includes classical pieces that derive from Peking Opera. Members of the musical ensemble Melody of Dragon Players add to the mix, supplying virtuosic renditions of such standards as "Raindrops on the Plantain" performed on Chinese instruments.

These sophisticated elements lent a spiritual dimension to Saturday's program that went far beyond the light-hearted attempt to invite good fortune. Sacred animals lurked within Chen's new, modern solo "Instinct," guarding the precincts of the stage with mysterious intensity. And the heavens rained down blessings, both in the choreographer's group premiere "Raindrops" and in her classical solo "Dance of the Heavenly Flower Maiden.

In "Heavenly Flower Maiden," Chen shows the classical discipline and precision that underpin her modern work. She choreographed the solo for herself, based on traditional Peking Opera movements, adapting an operatic episode that is usually both danced and sung. In this version, the title character enters shuffling backward from an upstage corner. When she turns to face us, the sudden discovery of her beauty suggests a manifestation of the divine.

The Flower Maiden's arms curl gracefully and unwind as she travels between iconic poses. Each completed pose seems like a new entrance and offers a new revelation. In addition to the strength of these stylized positions, the Flower Maiden knows the secret to manipulating long ribbons of blue, white and mauve, which trail behind her or swirl around her in a floating nimbus. Chen looked ravishing, seeming to wield magic powers.

"Raindrops" was more informal -- coy where "Heavenly Flower Maiden" was sublime. Yet similarly it rejoiced in the blessings of heaven. As bells sounded with a "ping," four women extended their hands to catch the raindrops and turned their faces to the sky.

Later they struck the floor delicately with their toes, the way rain rebounds spattering from the earth. They crossed the stage in waves. At other times, they adopted an introspective stillness that conveyed the mood of a rainy afternoon.

Chinese umbrellas and falling soap bubbles added to the playfulness of this piece. Most telling, perhaps, was a moment near the end when the women's shoulders loosened, upon hearing the rhythmic song of Sainkho, a traditional vocalist. At this point, "Raindrops" gloried in the freedom to get wet and not care a bit.