APPEX Gets Caught Up in Nostalgia

Self-enchantment is a decadent, dead-end condition for any artist, and UCLA’s groundbreaking Asia Pacific Performance Exchange succumbed to it, body and soul, in a valedictory three-hour program titled “Creating Across Cultures: An APPEX Experience” at the Japan America Theatre on Saturday.

The event celebrated the six summers in which APPEX brought 86 Asian and American artists into intense collaborative relationships on the Westwood campus. But an overload of nostalgia for APPEX ’99 kept this presentation by APPEX 2001 from achieving its own distinction, while all the gushy talk gave outsiders the impression that APPEX had been less valuable as a matrix for collaborative art than as a warm bath of in-group affirmation.

In their comic “Sleeping With Strangers” segments, locally based performance artist Dan Kwong and Chinese actor-director Peng Jingquan initially undercut the sentimentality of the event, as if Abbott and Costello had somehow invaded an APPEX summer.

Kwong even ventured a drag impersonation of revered founder-artistic director Judy Mitoma: sheer heresy, of course, but a valuable antidote to the ooze elsewhere, But they, too, ended up wallowing in treacle: a farewell scene so teary and protracted that it could have been transposed directly into grand opera.

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Other artists reminded everyone of APPEX’s ultimate value as an inspiration or encouragement to daring creative exploration. At the top of the list: Thai dancer-choreographer Pichet Klunchun, a master of spare processional patterning in his contemplative quintet “One Hundredth Day” (music by Sinnapa Sarasas) and, in particular, a superbly fluid, supple, charismatic performer in his showpiece solo “Chuy Chay.”

In an extended excerpt from her solo “My Father’s Teeth in My Mother’s Mouth,” Taiwanese dancer-choreographer Cheng-Chieh Yu had ricocheted between loose-limbed, impulsive movements and a vocabulary derived from Asian classicism--but only “Chuy Chay” managed to make this kind of juxtaposition articulate and purposeful, the revelation of contrasting energy states.

Javanese dancer-choreographer Eko Supriyanto and Balinese composer I Dewa Putu Berata contributed “Sosok,” a complex, disarmingly intimate and sensual woman’s ensemble piece that deployed wicker paddle-fans and small cones in inventive, unexpected contexts. The cones could serve as lanterns or masks, for instance, and the fans as an architectural statement or an emphatic rhythmic emphasis.

Berata’s “Elu a Talu” graced the final, musical segment of the program, enlisting the sound of stones struck together, hollow poles hitting the floor and chant to evoke the beating of rice. Lenny Seidman’s “Tal of the Wild” displayed different percussion instruments--plus Peng Jingquan’s heroic vocalism--and Kenny Endo’s “Jugoya” segued artfully from an atmospheric woodwind and vocal opening to Endo’s powerful taiko drumming.

Between eight and 12 musicians participated here, including distinguished guests from CalArts. The evening ended with the collaborative “Tataga,” titled to fuse the same elements of Japanese taiko, Indian tabla (a treble drum) and Indonesian gamelan (a percussion band) as the music itself.