The first weekend in June, Ling Hui’s Dance will present their annual treat, the studio performance in Wheeler Theatre. The concert presents the culmination of a year’s study and includes new ballet and modern pieces set to a wide array of music – including Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Philip Glass, The Art of Noise and The Chemical Brothers.

Students range in age from 4 and up, including a very accomplished and dedicated group of teen and adult dancers. As always, the beginning 4-year-olds will try their very best to display “big!” and “tiny!” and “fast” and “slow” to the musical prompts, with unpredictable but adorable results.

“Totem Spirit” highlights the next age group in pattern work to tribal rhythms. The pre-teens get to romp and posture in “Here We Go.”  This year, there is a flirtatious ballet piece with mixed ages and fluttering fans as well as many other dance numbers. 

Ling Hui is famous for mixing different ages together in a piece of choreography.

This mix of ages and skill levels lets the audience imagine the years-long evolution of a dancer all in a single night. 

Several pieces are real stand-outs this year. (The imagery evoked is what this writer felt. You, dear reader, will of course find your own story. That’s the evocative power of this art form.)

“Under Stars” is a modern piece with a dreamy underwater feel. The dancers begin on the floor, and move like beautiful octopi at ease in their home element, rolling bonelessly in waves only they can feel. The dancers wear their hair loose for this one, which adds a jellyfish-tendrils-effect to their flowing movements. A touch of sparkle in the costumes heightens the underwater/under starlight feeling as these beautiful, other-worldly creatures go about their business to the music of AURORA and Kevin Keller.

There is always something a little unbelievable and magical about en pointe work, and this is taken full advantage of in the ballet “Love Etude,” where some sort of secret ritual from ancient times is underway. The graceful, Greek-inspired costumes in a cinnamon color waft and drift as the three priestesses weave their spells. There is a beautiful sadness to this piece, a forgotten rite perhaps, vital but forgotten, still faithfully performed by the last three practitioners from a long-lost time.

“Riding Twilight” is a stark modern piece, a story from present times. There is a sense of uncertainty, and guarding, and protecting. “Are we safe? Are we OK?” the dancers seem to ask as they dash to and fro, looking outward, fending off, spinning out of harms way and back into danger. There are hints of the refugee’s long and weary journey, and the scattered panic of a night camp discovered by the authorities. The dancers flee and regroup, ever watchful, trying to stay safe in harrowing times.

Studio Director Ling Hui began dance classes at a very early age in Taiwan. She studied in Japan and later at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and served as Educational Director of the Crown Studio – Taipei Dance Forum Company. For the last twenty-two years she has worked with local dancers in Port Townsend. 

Performances are June 1 at 7 p.m. and June 2 at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Wheeler Theatre in Fort Worden State Park. Advance tickets are available at the Port Townsend Food Co-op.

Marian Roh danced professionally in her younger days, and studied/performed with Ling Hui for several years until her dancing-days retirement.