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Published on April 4, 2008

South Australia has long been known for its Barossa Valley, a name any wine aficionado should know by heart. So perhaps when I landed at Adelaide International Airport I should have claimed to be a wine buff, instead of telling the truth. But I couldn't help myself: "I'm here to watch dance and theatre performances at the Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts," I explained, and won myself a harder, longer time clearing immigration and customs.

Notwithstanding the minor traveller's hitch, I was eager to see two of the festival's highlights, both world-class intercultural and interdisciplinary collaborations by four contemporary masters - Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem's "Sacred Monsters" and Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass's "Book of Longing".

At the fade-up of stage lights, stellar French ballerina Guillem's wrists were in chains, while her performance partner, Indian Kathak-master Khan, moved around the stage stomping his feet occasionally. Soon, Guillem dropped the chains and Khan rid himself of his Indian percussion anklet. Noteworthy here: both were in very casual attire, but what we were watching was far from a rehearsal.

Accompanied by an international music ensemble comprising violin, cello, percussion and two vocalists, and staged in a huge off-white set, the astounding 65-minute performance was interspersed with solo parts, during which the other dancer watched and sipped water on the stage. One memorable solo was "Sally", created by legendary Taiwanese choreographer Lin Hwai Min and showcasing Guillem's exemplary fluidity in her exploration of Asian perfection.

In addition, informal yet thought-provoking dialogues added another dimension by preventing the performance from becoming impenetrably highbrow, and making a friendlier connection with the audience. At one point, for instance, Khan informed us that unlike other Kathak dancers, he could no longer dance the role of Hindu god Krishna because he'd shaved his head. Guillem joked: "You could be a bald Krishna."

The highlight came when they performed a final duet, filled with fascinating leaps, flawless spins and turns. Despite their vastly different dance backgrounds, confined by rules and constricted by prejudice, the two artists found common ground in the realm of contemporary dance, open enough to let them experiment freely. The question perhaps remains, though, whether audiences are ready to venture away from artistic and cultural stereotypes.

A few evenings later at the same venue - the Festival Theatre - acclaimed composer Philip Glass, who was at the keyboard on-stage, delivered a generally invigorating and frequently soulful interpretation of the works of Leonard Cohen, best known as a singer-songwriter. The performance included ballads, love poems and retrospectives, along with spiritual meditations written during the five years Cohen spent at a Zen centre in California.

Cohen's pre-recorded voice set the tone: "I can't make the hills. The system is shot. I'm living on pills, for which I thank God." Then came the line-up of poems. Glass selected 22 out of the 150 from Cohen's "Book of Longing", the collection on which the performance is based. The grouping of singers for different poems, their carefully planned entrances, positions and exits, the highlighting of certain musical instruments in different numbers, as well as projections of Cohen's drawings and sketches on upstage screens of various sizes added up to a stimulating evening for both mind and senses.

Things ended on a humble note: "It's merely a song, merely a prayer. Thank you, teachers. Thank you, everyone". Yet the audience knew it was more than that, because we'd just experienced first-hand what Glass had earlier noted about Cohen: "His artistry as a poet is to frame a familiar thought in an unexpected and beautiful way."

Sheer respect for each other's traditions and artistic ideas was evident in both sold-out performances, and the intercultural and interdisciplinary discourse widened the perspectives of both the artists and their audiences.

The performances were special treats for lovers of the performing arts in Adelaide, a city whose local government and private sector pour immense support into its bi-annual international arts festival. This year it was enough to draw cultural tourists from other parts of Australia, as well as abroad.

Pawit Mahasarinand

Special to The Nation