Nederlands Dans Theater takes dance inspiration from ancient Chinese shamanic text, the Book of Changes
Letting the great forces of the world roll through us can lead to brilliance. Not just ordinary material brilliance, but something deeper, that can sustain and represent life
When Nederlands Dans Theater presents Safe As Houses during their Asian tour this autumn, they will be following on a well-lit path of using the ancient Chinese shamanic text, the I Ching – (also known as the Yijing or in English the Book of Changes – to create an extraordinary modern dance piece.
The I Ching is said to have begun more than 3,000 years ago, on a cloudy mountaintop in Shensi province where a famous oracle spoke to people seeking an answer to their questions.
It works on a system of 64 different “hexagrams” each made of six lines that are either yin (broken) or yang (unbroken), and for each reading there is usually a second hexagram, where some of the lines have shifted or changed to make a different message.
The radical American contemporary choreographer, Merce Cunningham, who died in 2009, regularly consulted the I Ching to decide the order that his dancers should make certain steps, or in what order they would come on stage.
“Things come up that one could say were physically impossible,” Cunningham said, “but I always try them and in the act of doing, I find out something I didn’t know.”
