Communing

Program Notes

The original inspiration for this piece came from Guang Chang Wu—Square Dancing, a synchronized exercise routine primarily practiced by middle-aged and retired women in public parks in China during the evenings. They gather at sunset and dance together until it's pitch- black.

We are always searching for our own community. The sense of belonging to a group makes a place feel like home. When the 100 million Square Dancers set up their boombox and press play, they claim the space and a community. They may not engage in much conversation, but they repeat the same sequences day after day. It's reminiscent of the morning exercise drills in elementary school during the socialist era, the propaganda sequences of loyalty to the great leader in the 1960s, and the procedural tasks practiced on assembly lines and in textile factories before automation took over many jobs at the turn of the century.

At other times of the day, their fingers dance on their phone screens: sliding and clicking, pressing and typing, as they search for the best deals on various items: toilet papers, hangers, pajamas, baby wipes, meat, juice, five buck meals etc.… One can secure the cheapest deals by finding a group to buy together.

The hectic, jittery sales pitches announcing prices, the wrapping and unwrapping of mass- produced merchandise, the clanging plastics, the beats from the low-fi Square Dancing, and the subsiding night with faint city pulses all converge with one another.

Choreographer Madeline Hollander drew movements from Square Dancing to create this piece with repeated sequences for five dancers moving at various tempos. Russell Greenberg will be on percussion, and I will be on the piano, performing, improvising, and triggering electronics.
This simultaneous and asynchronous connection between sound and movement is a recreation of a transient urban ritual.

– Wang Lu