WATER MOON 水 · 月
choreography and PERFORMANCE
Artist: Anna Borou Yu Composer: Tiange Zhou Photographer Jiajian Min Year: 2021
Water and Moon has long been a universal motif of human beings since ancient times. Anna Borou Yu, a dancer from China and now practices in NY, tries to express the understanding of this everlasting theme, derives from her Chinese background and echoes with the global cultural context. This is a piece of hometown, growth, mentality, and understanding oneself.
The dance piece includes 4 sections. The first section begins from the general imagination of brook and ocean, star and cosmo, where the power of Nature nourishes living bodies in the world.
The second section is the journey of wandering that we have all shared, from the hometown to Neverland, like migratory birds or Ulysses. The future is a distant past, recurring once upon a time.
The third section is an expression of the Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara in China and Buddhism, performs as the earthly manifestation of the Goddess (Avalokite) of sound (svara) and sight, and magically parallels with the pronunciation of Aphrodite in Greek epics (Venus in Rome myth).
Finally, the dance revisits the abstract iconography of Flowers in Mirror and the Moon's reflection in Water, a Chinese metaphor of mirage, illusionary and insubstantial bodies.