The four male dancers of C.Sense, a South Korean-based company, officially opened the program with “Trivial Perfection” choreographed by dancer and co-founder Dae-ho Lee. Drawing from pedestrian movement, mime, contemporary dance, and hip-hop, the four performers in t-shirts and athletic shorts proceeded through a lengthy series of short, sometimes humorous sketches. The movement vignettes adhered to a standard recipe: start with a single dancer performing a simple movement, add more dancers repeating the movement, merge into a collective mass maintaining the movement, move through space with it─if desired. In the post-show Q & A, Lee claimed inspiration from the art of mosaic─creating composite shapes comprised of a combination of smaller pieces. Although the scenes contained some amusing slapstick moments, the piece was more trivial than perfection as the choreographic formula, lacking in surprise or variation, was over-repeated and under-developed. 

“…and, or…,” a duet choreographed by I-Ling Liu, a contemporary dance artist from Taiwan and former member of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, offered a kind of physical drama within a non-music environment. Through quirky games and trials in physical partnering and human relationship navigated by dancers Wei-Ting Hung and Jyun-Yi Lin, the dance explored an assortment of choreographed and real-time decision-making. Visible physical effort accompanied by audible thuds and the overstepping of personal boundaries produced dramatic tension and sporadic glints of humor. Gentle moments offered an occasional flicker of beauty framed by Yan-Yi Lo’s lighting. As the piece continued beyond several perfect endings, it confirmed the maxim, “Less is more.”