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Review: ‘Monchichi,’ a Love Story in Different Languages — New York Times
BECKET, Mass. — A ballerina and a b-boy fall in love. It sounds like the setup for a sentimental American movie about people with radically different backgrounds connecting. But what if she is German, with a Korean mother? And what if he is French, with Spanish and Catalonian parents? That sounds not just like a European variation but also one with potentially less predictable complications.It is the real story of Honji Wang and Sébastien Ramirez, and it is the subject of their 2011 duo “Monchichi,” which began a run here at Jacob’s Pillow on Wednesday. The language that bridges their differences, though, isn’t some blend of ballet and breaking. It’s an outgrowth of hip-hop, and Ms. Wang dances it as adroitly as Mr. Ramirez. At one point, she even does so in high heels and a blond wig, for the tradition that “Monchichi” crosses with hip-hop is not ballet. It’s European tanztheater. They share the stage with a bare tree that might be from “Waiting for Godot,” except that it later lights up white, red and green.
The beginning of the dance is actually more Adam-and-Eve-like, with the man and the woman wary of each other, yet interested. The staccato, robotic way they isolate parts of their bodies makes them seem especially isolated as people. Their first physical interactions have an experimental, what-does-this-do quality. When they connect, it’s with fingers at the ends of sinuous, worming arms.The choreography is striking, but only in flashes. Ms. Wang is cool and consistent, but the most remarkable aspect of Mr. Ramirez’s elastic dancing is how he keeps stopping short, pulling up, putting on the brakes. He seems to let loose so that he might rein himself in.
The restraint is intriguing, an eschewal of hip-hop showboating, yet it permeates the rhythm of the whole show. “Monchichi” lurches. Sections of choreography alternate with unsubtle episodes of tanztheater that are, at best, cute: Ms. Wang and Mr. Ramirez complaining about the difficulties caused by merging families with different languages — in a mix of German, Korean, Spanish and English. Here and there, the two seem on the cusp of discovering some deeper poetry in their combination of cultures. As Ms. Wang walks a diagonal line, Mr. Ramirez threads his body through her steps: a novel image, deftly executed. But too much of “Monchichi” reverts to a familiar contemporary duet about shifting power, which seems to be the same story, no matter how many languages you tell it in.
