Dance Review: North American Premiere of Gu Jiani's 'Right & Left' Challenges Assumptions

Joseph Lam, Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (CI), climbed a short set of stairs from the house of the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater up to the edge of the stage and immediately noted that he'd been given specific directions: Don't touch the floor. Indeed, it was a pristine white marley lining the Mendelssohn's stage, whose unique white plaster cyclorama and exposed fly rails elicited a clean, sparse space for the North American premiere of Gu Jiani's Rig...