Posted on: Friday, February 4, 2005
Masked monkeys run amok
By Carol Egan
Special to The Advertiser
This weekend the Paliku Theatre comes alive with an invasion of monkeys — young, old, rebellious and authoritarian monkeys. There are even surfing and singing monkeys, and several that escape from the stage to break through to the audience.
The Year of the Monkey is drawing to a close for those who follow Chinese astrology, and the creator of this chaos, Ben Moffat, said he wanted to open this show during that cycle. "Now we can rest for 12 years, I guess," he joked.
Rest is hardly what Moffat and Monkey Waterfall co-director Yukie Shiroma will do, however. Each has the responsibility of heading up prestigious programs — Moffat directs the theater program at Windward Community College, while Shiroma heads the large dance program at Mid-Pacific Institute School of the Arts.
• 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday • Paliku Theatre, Windward Community College • $15 general, $8 seniors, students, military, children • 235-7433 Although Shiroma's major study was modern dance, she had a great love of traditional Okinawan dance. She has been studying it now for 30 years with master sensei Cheryl Yoshie Nakasone. "I moved to Hawai'i because of (Nakasone) and Betty Jones" (the renowned modern dancer and teacher, and co-director of Dances We Dance), Shiroma said. "I had never studied Okinawan dance, but that's my heritage. Once I saw her, I knew I had to study with her."
In "Uchinanchu," a new work choreographed for Nakasone by Shiroma as an homage to her teacher, Shiroma uses traditional movement blended with modern choreographic structures. "I think the future is really in the respectful blending of forms, which creates something bigger than the sum of its parts," she said.
This weekend's program will also include the company's signature work, "Monkey and the Waterfall," which hasn't been seen here since 1996. "We never had a theater with a ceiling high enough," confesses the petite Shiroma. In the work, tall and lanky Moffat extends upward even further through the use of drywall leg and arm stilts. The piece was most recently seen in London, where it was performed twice a day during a teaching residency at the International Workshop Festival.
In addition to Shiroma, Moffat, and Nakasone, featured performers also include UH dance professor Kristi Burns, Coco Chandelier (also known as Sami L.A. Akuna III), and Hester Kamin of Honolulu Theatre for Youth.
Ben Moffat's four-part work, "Year of the Monkey," will be performed by Windward Community College theater students wearing masks created by the company's "image director," Michael Harada. The use of masks helps demonstrate the physical techniques involved in acting, which can bring to life a myriad of characters simply through movement and body postures. This fusion of mask and body, which goes back to the old Italian commedia dell'arte, is rich in expression but, unfortunately, often neglected in today's acting schools. (Because of the powerful force of the masks, the program is not recommended for children under 8 years old).
Monkey Waterfall dance company brings characters alive through masks and movement in a performance of old and new works.
When they met at the University of Hawai'i back in the 1980s, both were completing MFAs, he in Asian Theatre and she in dance. Shiroma said "he was looking for actors who could move, and I was interested in incorporating more narrative content into the dance."
'MONKEY WATERFALL IN CONCERT'
