It was a cool night. Qin, Rui and I, met together and decided to spend Saturday night, watching “The Sound of the Ocean,” presented by U theatre from Taiwan.
To Rui, it was a common thing to watch a show there. Before parking her car, Rui dropped us by the front entrance to get the tickets. It was ‘U ren shen Gu’as U theatre’s second and last show here. People swarmed to the ticket office. One person could only get four tickets. Without tickets, people had to sit on the grassy hill. We brought a blanket with us just in case.
My friend Shu, a music lover, was there. She wore a long, black robe with a nunlike bag. About a hundred people were there, and all got seats. How lucky we were, sitting in the middle row but separately. Once a while, listening to the airplane sound from the distance, Qin passed the snacks, fruit, peanuts and tea to us.
Twelve drums and a gong were quietly placed on the stage. After the introduction by the board member, and a reminder to turn off phones and cameras, all the lights on the stage were turned off. The performers walked slowly onto the stage in the dark, one by one, entering their places. Silent but powerful, thirteen performers just like the Shao Lin disciples, prepared to do the night services in the temple. They used the long sticks to drum or strike a gong, releasing primitive energies from within; making up and down with their beats. Sometimes you felt that they were murmuring, and sometimes roaring. Drum beats roaring in the air like the thunder and also like the waves. The performers mindfully formed their bodies into a beautiful stucture. It was not easy to bend their knees and beat the drums. We called it as ‘zuo ma dun’,holding half stance for thirty minutes during each program. Male performers were all shaved and stood on the right side of the stage, and the female performers stood on the left side. During the show, several people left, but one hundred more still stayed to see the show. It was not only a show but also gong fu martial arts. The New York Times said, “The concentration and focus of the swaying, bounding performers is impressive, as is the purity of their material at the start. Huang Chih chun’s music is the best part of ‘the Sound of the Ocean’ To its credit, the mountain dwelling, meditating U Theatre stays remarkably free of New Age goo.”
After the program ended, outside I saw a big trailer that was waiting to be loaded with all the equipment. On our way home, Qin suggested that we celebrate the New Year’s Eve together.
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