Inside by Gong Xingxing also has a title in Chinese - Meiyou Gudao, meaning "there is no lonely island". It's an apt description of the piece, which explores the challenges of forging relationships in the information era - and does so with optimism.

 

 

Early on, one performer lies all alone in silence on a stark black stage, curling her limbs in melancholy ballet-like movements. Such powerful solos, often with minimal or no musical accompaniment, punctuate the performance. Dancers also drift apart and coalesce into duets, trios, and other pairings, highlighting the theme of connections. There are vulnerability and yearning in the ways they lean on, embrace and even cradle one another, and the effect is heartfelt.

 

 

Accordion-style silver tubes, reminiscent of metallic appendages from a robot, appear throughout Inside, whether worn on arms and legs curved around each other in a pas de deux or peered through in periscope fashion. Gong leaves it up to the audience to decipher the symbolism (the "heavy weight of indifference" referenced in the playbook?) yet they add a unique element to the work.

 

 

Inside also benefits from an eclectic soundtrack that drives the shifting moods onstage. In one scene, Louis Armstrong's carefree cover of the classic French song La Vie en Rose - which means "life seen through rosy hues" - plays as pink lighting illuminates a performer watching others lounge on the ground. In another, a soft piano recording strikes a more tender chord as a couple moves together in a slow, fluid harmony during a duet.

 

Ultimately, Inside engages the audience from start to finish with its emotional core, dramatizing that universal fear of loneliness and the redemptive power of love through exceptional performances, including by Gong herself.