BEGIN FROM HERE (1996)
Choreography: Lily Cai
Music: Gang Situ & Gary Schwantes
Lighting Design: Jack Carpenter

This is the testimony of a Chinese artist in the process of forming new perceptions and visions as a result of being infused with new circumstances, influences and ideas of the West. An aesthetic hybrid of Chinese tradition and the affect of the West, Begin From Here stands as a metaphor for the points between the known and the unknown, the real and the surmised, and what is possible and seemingly impossible.

PRESS QUOTES

• "Best of all, the geometric patterns created by the women's standing on tall pedestals as they waved green banners in spirals to the floor created the sort of momentum that the late Alwin Nikolais would have applauded."
~ Octavio Roca, The San Francisco Chronicle

• “Her professional training is beautifully apparent with Begin From Here, which opens with dancers sinuously unfurling from crouched positions, heads cocked and palms folded together in the prayer like gestures of traditional court dance. Cai makes effective use of old props: Her dancers snap and ripple long jewel toned silk ribbons across the stage as a lone dancer spins low to the ground, whipping her long hair in circles with Duncan like abandon.”
~ Heather Wisner, San Francisco Weekly