Minh Tran: A Return Dance Performance
Lincoln Performance Hall
Portland, Oregon
December 1999

Reviewed by Martha Ullman West
(excerpted from Dance Magazine)


Tere Mathern's Evidence of Division was in every way the high point of Vietnamese-American dancer Minh Tran's first concert in Portland since 1996 when he left his adopted city to acquire an M.F.A. in dance.

Evidence, the duet for Mathern and Tran, has an intelligent, meticulous design that reveals Mathern as a choreographer who knows what she's about. Words like lucid, limpid, and smart come to mind to describe this kinetically fascinating piece. Almost identical in size, the two dancers, whose arms and legs seem at times to pierce the stratosphere, are as finely tuned to the choreography, the sound, and each as are members of a good string quartet. Movement that is both angular and spiraling sometimes dovetails, sometimes contrasts with the projected close-ups of leaves and branches. The piece, while cerebral in concept, contains considerable passion.