Revival of Arts from the Silk Road
by Pamela Squires, The Washington Post
November 9, 1993

Intercultural communication is politically correct, but not always easy to achieve.

That is why last Tuesday night's East Meets East II, the second in a series of collaborative concerts at the Japan Information and Culture Center, was out of the ordinary. It brought together Chinese, Japanese, and Indian musicians and dancers on one program without producing a mushy, assimilationist stew. Instead, the artistic director, ballet and Japanese No trained Shizumi Shigeto Manale, cooked up a crispy stir-fried program that kept the flavor of each style intact. She gave the performers enough leeway to keep their individuality without stressing similarities. This communicated the delight of difference.

The performance celebrated the center's "Life in Asia" photo exhibit that traces the ancient silk trade route from China to the Mediterranean. Shanghai-born singer and pipa (lute) player Pearl Pan was joined by 63-year old Wei Dong Hou, who moved to Arlington last year from Beijing. He portrayed the story of the silk road ina literal manner, mimicking a gallop across open spaces. Indian dancers Nilimma Devi and her daughter Anila Kumari interpreted, through the classical Kuchipudi form, a 16th-century Hindu mystic poem that used silk as an analogy for the fabric of life: "The breath and the nerves are the thread…"

The Japanese section's classical portion (dancer Mihiro Suzuki and shaku-hachi flutist Masahiro Nishihama) made its modern portion (by Shizumi) seem a natural outgrowth of similar sensibilities.

The program concluded with a madcap composition by Maryland Symphony timpanist Joseph McIntyre that integrated timpani, synthesizer, pipa, shakuhachi and mridangam (Indian drum) without sounding odd.