Shaolin warrior monks take a leap of faith

Bryce Hallett

Leaps of faith ... Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and one of the 17 Shaolin monks demonstrate their acrobatic skills in Sutra. Photo: Hugo Glendinning

A troupe of high-flying Buddhist monks cured a renowned choreographer's creative fatigue, turning modern dance on its head in the process, writes BRYCE HALLETT. 
 
In the political arena, cultural exchange suggests a formal diplomatic arrangement aimed at broadening horizons or engendering a level of mutual understanding and trust. In the arts world, it is more about loosening stereotypes, creative leaps of faith and breaking down barriers to achieve original and adventurous forms.
An unlikely cross-cultural partnership, and one of the big touring success stories of recent years, is the acclaimed contemporary movement piece Sutra, which was commissioned by the British dance house Sadler's Wells in 2007. It opens in Sydney this week for the Spring Dance season at the Opera House.

Directed, choreographed and performed by the Moroccan-Belgian dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, the East-meets-West collaboration fuses contemporary European dance, the martial arts feats of 17 Buddhist monks from the Shaolin Temple in China, an ingenious set of wooden boxes by the British sculptor Antony Gormley and an original score by the Polish composer Szymon Brzoska.

Leaps of faith ... Shaolin monks demonstrate their acrobatic skills in Sutra. Photo: Hugo Glendinning

Cherkaoui, 34, came to notice when he won a Belgian dance contest in 1995 by creating an energetic jumble of hip-hop, classical ballet and African moves. The judges were reportedly spellbound. His strength, agility and vulnerability caught the eye of the visionary Alain Platel, whose Compagnie C de la B has trained and influenced many of the world's leading dancers.

Cherkaoui says creating Sutra was a rewarding but daunting experience, not least because it meant earning the trust and involvement of the young warrior monks, who are aged between 20 and 22. "They follow a strict Buddhist doctrine and the challenge was to gain their acceptance, then inspire them to expand their perspective about the role of martial arts," says Cherkaoui, who began his career as a hip-hop dancer. "Kung fu and tai chi are integral to their faith and it was important to observe their culture from within."

The innovative and prolific choreographer, who performed Zero Degrees with his friend and kindred spirit Akram Khan at the 2007 Sydney Festival, spent months in the remote mountainside monastery near the city of Dengfeng in Henan Province. He observed a religious life that puts the individual in a system of ritual and discipline, and joined the increasingly receptive monks for meals, exercise and meditation.

Shaolin monks demonstrate their acrobatic skills in Sutra. Photo: Hugo Glendinning

"I didn't go in [to the temple] with a plan but with an open mind and heart. I remember saying to a friend who encouraged me, 'But what could I be doing?' I couldn't see the outcome but when I was there I saw the potential. The monks were intrigued by me and I was intrigued by them. I realised I could apply my knowledge to their rituals and adapt their precise movements – the powerful kicks and daring backflips – into something transformative, dramatic, mysterious and exciting."

Ever curious and open to ideas (Cherkaoui is a big fan of Bruce Lee's high-flying virtuosity), the loquacious choreographer says his pilgrimage was both personal and practical, and motivated by a desire to regenerate his ideas and overcome creative fatigue.

"At the time I was looking for a new way of expressing myself," he says. "The Shaolins were wonderfully open and relaxed around me. During our initial encounters, we spoke a lot about how their kung fu training and mastery connects with the outside world and how they relate spiritually to animals and the environment."
Despite the lack of heating and other comforts, Cherkaoui says he felt at home and was tempted to stay for as long as he could. It helped, of course, that he doesn't drink, smoke or eat meat.

He says Sutra's gradual blossoming into a multi-faceted movement piece was unforced, well-organised, rigorous and mutually engaging. "It was fascinating to see how much common ground we had and, amazingly, their way of expressing some things turned out to be similar to my own Belgian humour. There was lots of laughter."

Meanwhile, Gormley, who also collaborated on Zero Degrees, was busy designing the 21 open-sided spruce boxes that would eventually adorn the stage and be used to create an array of striking images, including lotus flowers, skyscrapers, mazes and burial grounds.

The Turner Prize-winning sculptor's work is as much about the body as it is about the incongruous landscapes in which he locates his figures. He relished furthering his artistic partnership with the supple and strong Cherkaoui. He also spent time at the Shaolin Temple. Working on Sutra allowed him to nourish his spirituality while returning to the vocabulary of dance.

"To me, dance is one of the most direct art forms there is and one of the most poetic and vulnerable," Gormley says. "The monks have a wonderful freedom of spirit and they're as interested in hip-hop and contemporary culture as they are in the Buddhist sutras."

Gormley, who had spent two years in India living in monasteries and practising meditation in his youth, quickly responded to the physicality of the monks and the austerity of their environment. His coffin-like boxes were partly inspired by his earlier travels to China, where he was astonished by the compartmentalised domestic arrangements for young girls at a factory he visited. The image of five or six beds stacked on top of the other came to mind when he saw the dormitory arrangements in the monastery. It got him thinking, then creating a set design he imagined would be static. Cherkaoui, who grew up enchanted by the expressive and liberating movements of Kate Bush and Madonna, had other ideas.

No sooner had the boxes arrived than the super-fit Shaolins attentively responded to the choreographer's playful instructions as they manipulated the set pieces to form a variety of patterns and forms in which they could hide, spring out, make walls or topple them like dominoes.

"It reminded me of when I was a child playing with Lego," he says "The monks don't speak English and communicate through gesture; they are soulful and talented. Some are naturally artistic while others don't know how to separate performance and life. Their whole Shaolin philosophy is based on discovery and self-discovery and a healthy sense of how to handle suffering."

Cherkaoui says his time in the monastery recalled the hothouse environments of Les Ballets C de la B and the Royal Danish Ballet. For someone who has spent much of his career exploring notions of identity and the role of the collective, he found much in common with the monks. "The monks all commit to the Buddhist way, to the same thing, and their shared ritual assumes profound meaning when set against all the communities that are divided and where people are either oppressed or trying to break free."

Having grown up Muslim in Belgium, Cherkaoui is acutely aware of what it is like to be an outsider and he says becoming a choreographer was his response to this. "It's given me the freedom to explore my own language and [to] blur the lines of gender. My education was always as an individual and having to find your own thing . . . I'm still looking for purpose and it has a lot to do with my family. My parents were very divided people. They loved each other but [they] were struggling with each other in a culture of two extremes. It's that continual ping-pong: do you stay true to yourself or do you abandon yourself to the other; there is no real happiness either way."

Sutra is at the Sydney Opera House from Thursday to Sunday, September 19.

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