When I first read the lineup for the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, I saw that it included Taiwan’s Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and Beijing Dance Theater, performing only a week apart. Having spent time in China, I immediately pitched a story which involved reviewing both shows and discussing the ways in which modern dance has developed and been interpreted in Asia. Given current political and historical tensions, it was hard not to want to see these two shows together.

A creation of the Montreal-based circus company The Seven Fingers, "Traces" was a heartracing and throughly entertaining evening filled with youthful charm and some serious acrobatic skills.

The ancient Greeks had two words for time: “Chronos,” a chronological and sequential series of events, and “Kairos,” an undetermined “space between,” in which something special happens.

Circus has evolved in recent times to encompass some of the best aspects of dance, theater, and live music. Since the “nouveau cirque” movement of the 1970s, many troupes have left behind the animals, spandex, and canvas tents for a more imaginative, concert-hall version of the form.