There is a sense of tradition, but no traditional dance in Sin Cha Hong’s “Pilgrimage,” a work that gently alludes to life’s journey through a succession of calm, minimalist scenes that sometimes evoke the stylized stage pictures of Robert Wilson or Butoh performers.
Members of the Laughing Stone Dance Theater performing “Pilgrimage.”
Ms. Hong, who spent 20 years in New York before returning to her native Korea in 1993, created “Pilgrimage” in 1988, and the piece, which was performed Monday night at La MaMa Annex, has mostly worn well. In the opening section, seven dancers in long robes and conical caps move in silence on small stilts, arms draped over bamboo sticks they carry on their shoulders. To the sounds of birds, water and then rhythmic percussion overlaid by a fluted melody, they form lines and semicircles with little bending movements and small, repetitive arm gestures.
After sudden, stiff falls to the ground, the dancers writhe out of their outer robes as if emerging from cocoons, then move in near-slow motion, crouching and bringing their cupped hands to their mouths as if drinking. Ms. Hong fashions delicate patterns as the dancers circle an individual, or separate into small groups, but she retains a stylistic unity throughout these discrete events that gives “Pilgrimage” the illogical continuity of a dream.
Only once does a single figure — in a voluminous white robe — hold the stage alone, and this minimal solo, in which just the arms and upper body move slightly, possesses a surprising dramatic resonance. Here, Ms. Hong is aided by a skillful (uncredited) lighting design and the appealing score (put together by Masaru Soga and Myung-woo Na), which mixes nature sounds with traditional instrumentation and occasional song.
“Pilgrimage” can occasionally feel soporific — and interludes for two small dancers in white masks who seem to represent guiding spirits are jarringly twee — but it is mostly rewarding in its visual beauty and unforced tranquillity of purpose.
