Korean dance fantasies: Beautiful exceedingly! / A stunning Albert Tiu

In the Korean Fantasy Dance of Chun Hyang, choreographers stylized traditional dances while retaining their basic folk character. The ethnicity of the ceremonial “Dawning Light” went back 5,000 years, the women seemingly floating, moving ever-so-slowly and serenely in measured steps.

Holding baskets with flowers plastered around the rims, the same women wove circles above and around them, the viewers almost feeling the wind blowing on their faces and the scent of blossoms wafting toward them.

The fan dance — what a vision of loveliness! It was beautiful exceedingly as the poet Keats would say, with the dancers manipulating their fans while creating manifold, ever-changing patterns and undulating circles, to the fascination of the audience.

A male soloist, in brisk, thrusting majestic movements, whirled and turned in balletic jetés and tours en l’air. Humor abounded in “Gisaeng jumgo”: a flirt kept running after women who always repulsed his advances as he pursued each with whirling jumps and acrobatic feats.

The love duet portraying a man and woman on their wedding night was subtly and delicately sensuous. As in a pas de deux, they were as graceful as ballet dancers in the lifts and arabesques; indeed, more so!

The dance accompaniment was predominantly percussive, a single string instrument playing the melody in an Oriental mode. The dancers, in ravishingly elegant costumes, were endlessly arresting.

A tour de force had all 38 dancers onstage, the women holding small drums; the men, medium-size and large ones. A man on a raised dais had a huge drum; on either side of the stage, a drummer stood ready for action. With drums of assorted sizes, the entire ensemble started beating them in synchronized fashion — in varied rhythms and tempi, the sound increasing to thunderous volumes or, with superb collective control, diminishing to incredible whispers.

Occasionally, a group of women or men would dance yet never miss a beat on their drums, and always in unison with the rest.

Once, an eerie silence ensued as all beating of drums ceased. Resuming it in perfect synchronization, fiercely and ferociously, the ensemble prophesied doomsday.

What a mind-boggling climax to Korea’s National Day! Ambassador Choi, Joong-Kyung must have felt ten feet tall at the CCP main theater.

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Many local pianists have played Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 in C Minor and Albert Tiu’s rendition, to my mind, was the best thus far. The outer movements, with their startling chords and runs were executed with panache and polish that showed unusual excellence. Every passage became significant and impressive in the second movement, its lyricism expressed rapturously. Rachmaninoff came alive, briskly or langorously by turns, the daunting portions stunning, gripping, virtuosic. For an encore, Tiu played an arrangement by Godovsky of Saint-Saens “The Swan” from his Carnival of Animals.

Josefino “Chino” Toledo, with a sureness of hand and the fullest grasp of the score, drew a vigorous response from the mostly young MM Community Orchestra members.

He evinced the same firm authority and deep perception in Borodin’s Overture from Prince Igor, the increasing brio suggesting unrest and revolt. Smetana’s Moldau delineated a calmly flowing river enlivened by a wedding in its environs, then raging waters as it joins another river, then a tranquil one again. Strings, woodwinds and brasses conveyed a telling description under Toledo’s dexterous baton.

Internationally-awarded for his original and imaginative compositions, Toledo expertly directed the atonalities of Eliseo Pajaro’s “Life of Lam-ang”.

The concert was presented at Miriam College by the Institute for Orchestral Development headed by Dr. Patricia Licuanan.

P.S. to ‘Song of Joseph’

Raymond Roldan’s music, moving and powerful, deftly shifted from tonal to atonal, a drum and a single string instrument eloquently evoking ancient times.