Dance

Beautiful Decay is Cherry Leung’s second full-length work for 2014. As a member of the “New Force in Motion”, Leung’s creative inspiration has always been drawn from the physical manifestations of life – her first work, Yat Yat, was about ‘existence’, while the present Beautiful Decay is about ‘time’. The tourbillon of life never stops, as it sends time away by the second. Despite our efforts to hold back time, or more accurately, to wipe away the traces of its passing, we cannot stop its moving forward. We will witness with our own eyes decline, ageing, and the end of life. Then we will realise this is life’s natural process – it will not be perfect without experiencing the beauty of it all. According to choreographer Cherry Leung Tsz Yan, ‘flowers’ are the source of her inspiration for this production. “Flowers are beautiful. When they are in full bloom, we like to call them ‘fresh’. After their freshness is gone, they will wither and the petals will fall. Yet people fail to appreciate this state. Very often they throw the flowers away before they can witness their decay, not understanding that decay forms part of the integral cycle of life of the flowers. It is as if people are refusing to accept their own ageing.” The prime of life may be gone, the choreographer believes, yet through witnessing or experiencing first-hand the fading of its colours, we will be able to see the alternate palette coming out of them, and show us another kind of beauty that is valuable and unique. Beautiful Decay features six female dancers. “Among all beings, women are the most sensitive to the passage of time. They spend their lives nourishing their skin, applying make-up, grooming themselves and exercising, a clear manifestation of their fear of aging and their desperation to ‘keep fresh’. As dancers, we are most prone to feeling the threats of Time on our bodies: declining energy, gradual loss of explosiveness, and change in bodily functions – conditions that dancers have to face under the tyranny of time. Since we cannot keep it fresh, why don’t we accept decay, experience it, face it and let another palette appear before our eyes?” Through the dancers’ interpretation of temporal elements and the ‘use by dates’, this work attempts to experience the passage of time, embrace the laws of life, and look for ‘beautiful decay’ together with the audience.