This is because that is. . . .

Monkey King has been baking for some seventeen years before we set out for Taiwan. Seventeen years? Well, that’s the time it took the Buddhist priest Xuan Zang (the historical model for Journey to the West) to travel in 624 CE from China to India and back again. In 1991, I began to study t’ai ch’i with Sat Hon and in the same year, I performed Journey to the West at the American Museum of Natural History. At the time Sat, who had previously been a choreographer, gave me a few pointers on gestures for the performance. Since then, I’ve been asking him to choreograph all of Monkey King. In the Fall of 2007, after he watched  my friend, Anita Ratnam, dance at the Joyce Theatre in New York City, he said to me, “She’s an extraordinary dancer. The choreography does not match her talent. I have a vision now of how to grant your request. You are both powerful women. It will be a good match. I will choreograph you and Anita in Journey to the West. But you must be the producer.”

For nearly seventeen years, I’d waited for this moment. Anita and I had met in 2006 in her hometown of Madras, India. We struck up an immediate friendship. She loves stories; I love dancing. Anita was delighted to work on something new.  For years, I’ve been performing stories of great gods and goddesses (Inanna, Esther, Judith, Moses), Now I was old enough for an earthy, humorous mischievous, audacious, vulnerable character. Not only did I identify with his character  but his story metaphorically parallels my own - Monkey King makes the journey I was slowly traveling in my own life. He learns the Taoist secrets of immortality and fights against and moves toward self-cultivation and the integration of Taoism and Buddhism.

Anita, Sat and I rehearsed for a week in March and then again in June. As the producer. I asked Sat to choreograph the text as if it were a Beckett play, slow and dense. I wanted to bring out the philosophical struggle between the pure-hearted, idealistic Buddhist monk and the earthy wild impulsive Taoist Monkey. Sat created a Butoh dance. It was exquisite. But the playfulness and unpredictability of Monkey were gone. I missed the Chinese element. I suggested to Sat that we go to China in the summer. Because of the Olympics, He thought it would more prudent to go to Taiwan. I re-read the 2000 page novel in preparation. I didn’t know how to prepare for the excitement of traveling with my beloved Taoist teacher. After taking a I Ching course with him at the Open Center in 1990, I asked if I could study with him. He made me wait a year to test whether I was serious. I waited. And now, no more waiting. All was happening; we were on our way across the United States, the Pacific Ocean, to Taiwan.

The Story: Journey to the West

There are many doorways to enter story. A story has many facets — physical, ethical, philosophical, religious. iconic.  In our journey to Taiwan to trace the traditional Chinese steps of the epic as well as to come closer to understanding its richness and complexity, we met with a Buddhist scholar, a Monkey King trance/priest, a Taoist master, and a Monkey King actor. Each of them has been deeply touched by the Golden Monkey and offered us both specifics — how to walk like Monkey, how to walk like Kwan Yin — as well as explanations of the metaphors of the epic. We asked such questions as: Who are the robbers? What is the meaning of Monkey King’s great weapon The Complaint Rod? Why do Buddha’s disciples ask for bribes? We spent hours discussing Journey to the West with each of these specialists. it was an unexpected pleasure for all of us to dwell with this story. The Tang Emperor says to the Tang priest, “Will you make the journey of 108,000 miles to bring back the scriptures? If you cross raging rivers, insurmountable mountains, gorges, ravines, deserts, you will become my bond-brother.”