The extraordinary design of Under Siege visually holds one’s attention and interest for the duration of this multi-disciplinary piece of theatre and modern dance, that also demonstrates traditional Chinese story-telling and composition. As we enter the theatre a sea of shimmering silvery steel scissors, hanging from lighting bars in large heavy ad hoc clusters, dominates the stage, swaying in the breeze like a million wind chimes. In the downstage corner sits a woman in a voluminous white gown busily cutting paper images from reams of oversized paper with her scissors. Throughout the show she intermittently holds up various paper images from the huge pile in front of her. These symbols are characters from the Chinese language, with surtitle explanations given at each side of the stage. Tantalisingly few, these translations fortunately introduce each scene and character of the ancient story, even though it was sometimes difficult to follow what was actually happening on stage.

^{Under Siege at the Brisbane Festival. Photo supplied.}

This work is all about style, with artists, dance, music, design and visuals creatively intertwined to bring about an exceptionally exciting aesthetic whole. The story may be hard...