PORT TOWNSEND — Ling Hui’s Dance will present its 22nd annual recital, a studio performance in Wheeler Theater, tonight and Saturday.
The concert called “Riding Twilight” will present the culmination of a year’s study at the studio at 1968 Water St., and includes new ballet and modern pieces set to a wide array of music — including Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Philip Glass, The Art of Noise and The Chemical Brother.
Performances are scheduled for 7 tonight and 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday at Wheeler Theater in Fort Worden State Park.
Advance tickets are available at the Port Townsend Food CoOp — $15 for adults, $10 for children 12 and younger.
Students range in age from 4 years old on up, including a group of teen and adult dancers.
“As always, the beginning 4-year-olds will try their best to display ‘big’ and ‘tiny’ and ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ to musical prompts, with unpredictable but adorable results,” said Marian Roh, who reported the upcoming recital to the Peninsula Daily News.
“Totem Spirit” highlights the next age group up in pattern work to tribal rhythms. The pre-teens romp and posture in “Here We Go.”
“This year, there is a flirtatious ballet piece with mixed ages and fluttering fans as well as many other dance numbers,” Roh said.
Hui is known for mixing different ages together in a piece of choreography. This mix of ages and skill levels lets the audience imagine the years-long evolution of a dancer all in a single night.
Several pieces are real standouts this year, Roh said.
“ ‘Riding Twilight’ is a stark modern piece, a story from present times.
“There is a sense of uncertainty, and guarding, and protecting … There are hints of the refugee’s long and weary journey, and the scattered panic of a night camp discovered by the authorities.
“The dancers flee and regroup, ever watchful, trying to stay safe in harrowing times,” she said.
Another dance, “Under the Stars,” is a modern piece “with a dreamy underwater feel,” Roh said.
“Love Etude” is an en pointe piece in which a secret ritual from ancient times is underway, Roh said.
“There is a beautiful sadness to this piece, a forgotten rite perhaps, vital but forgotten, still faithfully performed by the last three practitioners from a long-lost time.”
Hui began dance classes at an early age in Taiwan. She studied in Japan and later at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and served as educational director of the Crown Studio-Taipei Dance Forum Co.
For the past 22 years, she has worked with local dancers in Port Townsend.
About this year’s performance Hui said, “I try to create a piece of choreography that will show off the students’ strengths and talents, no matter the level of training. They may not all go on to dance professionally, but they are all artists in this show.”
