Review | Hong Kong Dance Company’s revival of Helen Lai’s HerStory features superb performances as it explores women’s self-expression and challenges in a male-dominated world
- The dancers performed with feeling and a sense of freedom, expertly conveying the piece’s thought-provoking themes
- Lai’s choreography shows her ability to generate emotion, her mastery of groupings and the use of space, and her consummate musicality
Following the success of its staging of Helen Lai’s 1991 masterpiece Nine Songs two years ago, the Hong Kong Dance Company has revived another of the choreographer’s works, HerStory.
Although not on a par with Lai’s greatest works, such as Nine Songs, The Rite of Spring, The Comedy of K and Testimony, HerStory certainly deserves to be seen again: the themes are thought-provoking, the choreography outstanding and it was performed superbly by the entire cast.
First staged in 2007 for the City Contemporary Dance Company, HerStory was inspired by a unique writing system developed by the women of Jiangyong county, in mainland China’s Hunan Province, a secret code through which they could express themselves and communicate with each other without the knowledge of men.
Known as nüshu (HerStory’s Chinese title), this centuries-old system literally translates as “women’s writing”. Lai takes it as a starting point to explore not only the original phenomenon but women’s writing and self-expression in a wider sense, along with the challenges of living in a male-dominated world.
The opening section vividly evokes the hidden world of the women who devised nüshu 400 years ago. Seven barefoot female dancers in white costumes portray, in stylised, pared-down fashion, their relationships and the experiences of life in their village, such as marriage – symbolised by the clever use of red bridal veils – childbirth, grief and parting.
