LANDSCAPE
OVER ZERO
Choreography: Nai-Ni Chen
Music: Joan La Barbara
Set Design: Myung Hee Cho
Lighting Design: Dan Meeker
Dancers: 8 women, 5 men
length: 30 minutes
"...In Chinese, the Zero represents zero Celsius or zero-degree longitude and latitude at the earth's poles. These possibilities make me think of the freezing point where ice becomes water or a time when winter and spring meet. Growing up in the subtropical island of Taiwan, I had never seen a frozen land covered with ice and snow until I got to this country. What inspired me the most is the life force buried under the snow that strives to grow each spring. Zero is the beginning of everything. Several years after I read this poem, 9/11 happened in New York. We were in such despair and pain. Then, I thought about how the growing force in nature is in each one of us. Zero is a vision for a new beginning." -Nai-Ni Chen
Landscape Over Zero
it's
hawk teaching song to swim
it's
song tracing back to the first wind
we
trade scraps of joy
enter
family from different directions
it's
father confirming darkness
it's
darkness leading to the lightning of the classics
a
door of weeping slams shut
echoes
chasing its cry
its
a pen blossoming in lost hope
its
a blossom resisting its inevitable route
it's
love's gleam waking to
light up over landscape over zero
~poem by Bei Dao
