A dance based on the lifecycle of salmon with five young choreographers creating different pieces? Sounds like a recipe for disaster with too many cooks in the kitchen. But under the masterful guidance of Singapore dance pioneer Goh Lay Kuan, who acted as artistic director on this production, Returning proves a well-thought visual delight that celebrates Singapore’s diverse cultures, while delivering a beautiful and easily accessible story.The story begin with the avelins just hatching from their soft-shell eggs. As the baby fish slowly grow they remain hidden in the gravel nest, feeding on the yolk sac of their egg. Choreographed by Meenakshy Bashkar with music by G.P Pillai Amipili, the dance showcased movements from the classical Indian dance Bharatanatyam vernacular in a non-traditional way. Using hand and arm gestures as if gills, the eight dancers on stage portrayed young fish slowly emerging and fretting around, ready for their big adventure.Still vulnerable, the fry now leave their nest, facing their first difficult journey to avoid predators. Jenny Neo choreographed this section to Julian Wong’s score (Wong also acted as music director for the overall production), creating a dance that made full use of the stage with the dancers moving around in group formations, perfectly matching the poetic Chinese music.The next two segments — fingerlings transforming into smolt (when the salmon get a silver coating on their scales) as they arrive at the mouth of the river and then the adults living in schools freely in the oceans — were choreographed by Osman Abdul Hamid to a joyful, more folkloric Malay musical accompaniment, incorporating Malay dance movement in a more contemporary performance. The final segment, choreographed by Low Ee Chiang to music by Ho Wen Yang made same physical demands on the dancers much as the adult salmon will face traveling back upstream through the waters of their birth to spawn, an arduous journey that many will not survive. Here you felt sheer exhaustion for the dancers who never stopped and the pace of movement built to became more and more frantic to its climatic ending.While each dance style was rooted in its own traditions, they were absorbed by the choreographers to present a more united style, symbolizing the cultural melting pot that is Singapore. The overall production was enhanced by the subtle costume changes created by Lim Chin Huat that nicely evolved with the story to showcase the physical transformation of the salmon through its life cycle.With musicians using traditional instruments such as the gambus, the bansuri, dizi, xiao, and silver flute, but also electric sounds, the production had a Singaporean blend of old meets new, making this a Singapore production that could also travel well internationally. Returning runs Aug 13-15 at the Drama Center Theatre, 8pm
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