The brisk evening air on Thursday, November 8, matched my charged excitement to see a choreographed martial arts performance. I'd never heard of anything quite like this, and afterwards I'd say that I've never seen anything like it either. While Carytown and the Byrd took a step back into our country’s past with Lincoln-mania, Shaolin Warriors offered Richmond’s Carpenter Theatre a glimpse into a timeless tradition of China. Part awe-inducing feats of dexterity and part fear-inducing feats of endurance, the extremely well-choreographed production was simply a delight for anyone with even the slightest affinity for martial arts, or even Asian discipline in general.
Broken into a prelude and four scenes, the evening was a two hour participatory experience that proved very rewarding. Whether you were smiling and laughing at the dozens of young children they invited to the stage to simultaneously execute a short combination of moves, the older gentlemen similarly asked to “spar,” or the young ladies that could not dislodge a silver (eating) bowl suctioned to a warrior’s abs, these involving interludes were a perfect lighthearted contrast to the serious athleticism of the majority of the show.
The pace of the pieces was very good, with solemn bits following the more energetic ones, and audience participation throughout. As a side note, the inner kid in me got jealous really fast at how lucky those kids are to have been invited onstage by Shaolin warriors. I also relished seeing a group of young, impressionable persons conducting themselves in an (Asian) manner of bowing and behaving humbly; may they carry that through their lives.
Although feats of strength and agility were clearly brought to the fore, the extremes of the night came from things like metal bars and thick wooden staffs being broken over heads--sometimes the warrior's own. One of the displays involved a man lying face-up and shirtless across four swords as others laid a double-sided board of nails on his stomach that another performer laid on. Then a huge stone slab was pressed on the latter’s stomach, and broken with a heavy swing of a sledgehammer. And my personal favourite was the man who was lifted up flat and outstretched by other’s hands and then suspended with spear blade points when the hands moved away.
The only complaints of the night were a single missed lighting cue early on and a somewhat campy soundtrack. I felt the predominantly percussion-based tracks were incredibly effective in their dynamics and cohesion with the movement onstage. The songs that had a high-powered Disney ballad-esque hook or two were kinda kitschy. However, I only realized this when the music seemed to shut off randomly; the drummers and the warriors did not miss a single beat of that part when the soundtrack unexpectedly stopped.
Seeing the various animal-based styles was too cool. Quite obvious were the snake--with a warrior slung low like a tri-ped with his right, white-stocking’d leg curled above and over his head--and what I thought was the best; tiger style. (RZA could not be reached for comment.) And if it weren’t for the guy who sloshed onstage with a huge jug that appeared to get him drunk, the audience might not have all made the connection that the grace hidden in a somewhat awkward mesh of falls and flails was the infamous drunken (kickboxing?) style.
I had an interesting vantage point being close to the middle all the way to the right. The movement onstage lent a very biased view towards the front-and-center crowd, so I saw a lot of possibly unintended staggering of the various ensemble formations, but I’m not complaining that I didn’t get some of the cool single-file-head-on intention. After all, how can one complain after seeing all of the best parts of the best kung-fu flicks, performed live and without the possible failings of a Hollywood script?!