The Chairman Dances - John Adams

On Adam's "The Chairman Dances" Combined with Imagery from the Chinese Ballet "The Red Detachment of Women"

The synergy between the magnificent balletics and the (post)modern, march of Adam's music is both intriguing and exhilarating! The cogent and graphic symbolism used in the choreography is breathtaking and, juxtaposed with Adam's methodical syncopations, the listener/viewer can begin to lose a sense of time and space. If this is parody or pastiche and "authenticity" is lost, then it doesn't really matter when art breaks down restrictions and divines a truth beyond our usual experiences. The fight scene at the end is almost, pure West-Side Story, Jazz dance-like, brutal yet intrinsically aesthetic. The political/cultural ironies are not lost on me, nor the societal eccentricities of 1950's Communist China and its "Amazonian-style' army. 21st Century democracies seem to borrow from the constraints of Communism, but I guess that's another subject...

Video originally uploaded to Youtube by blacklitetuk