Ain't that a kick in the head

By GRAHAM REID

Steve Nolan laughs with a slight sense of embarrassment when he recalls the David Carradine martial arts television series of the early 70s. "I guess like everyone I watched Kung Fu every Thursday night or whenever it was. But that was about all I knew about kung fu.

"Now, having been to the actual temple in China, having met the abbott and read about it more I can see how it has its own legendary characters - like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It's an exciting story to tell."

And that's what Nolan's elaborate production, Shaolin Monks: Wheel of Life, does. Part martial arts display, part Chinese theatre (with traditional instruments) and a large part dramatic performance, the show - which opens here in 10 days - takes in the broad sweep of the Shaolin Temple's history as the original home of kung fu.

But it defies easy description. It is staged with an eye for the theatre but an ear for high-end rock'n'roll production. It puts Buddhist iconography on a concert stage but also brings in the astonishing physical feats of kung fu.

"You can't explain it in a poster," he says with audible frustration, "and it's tough even to this day to try to convince people it's not just for kung fu people who want to see a load of blokes fighting.

"It's very theatrical and it's exceptionally difficult to prove to people that it's not something they've seen before. We have to rely on word of mouth, but once people have seen it, they get it."

And what they get now is a long way from what a humble monk from central China was proposing four years ago.

In the late 90s, abbott Shi Yong Xin at the Shaolin Temple in Henan Province realised his monastery needed funds and so sent a monk as an envoy to London with the idea they put on a martial arts performance at the Royal Albert Hall.

"It was basically just a kung fu demonstration," says Nolan, "but the people at the Royal Albert suggested it would be better to put together a proper production otherwise people might have just thought it was the Kung Fu Club from Hounslow.

"They recommended he speak to me and I saw a video of what they did. The more I read the more I realised that here was the temple which was the birthplace of kung fu and that how these soldier monks defended it was an important event in Chinese history. So we talked about putting together a show that told the story through costume, theatre and drama."

That elaborate show - with a cast of 25 Henan monks including five children, plus actors, musicians and support crew - has taken the Shaolin story across the globe since its inaugural performance in September '99.

And for Nolan, whose background was in rock'n'roll, touring with a group of monks has been a life-changing experience.

He remembers coming off the 1990 Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels tour. He was in his late 20s, had been on the road since he was 16 with the likes of Elvis Costello and Robert Palmer, and had worked his way up from a lowly lighting technician to lighting designer for some of the biggest acts in rock'n'roll.

But after the Stones juggernaut he wanted out, to do something different - and so he set up his own company, Chromatic Productions, to stage live shows and major events.

These days, his company's CV is stacked with impressive credentials: from snowboard events in Switzerland to the Royal Gala Golden Wedding anniversary concert in the Royal Albert Hall for the Queen. His work has taken him through Europe and the States, and to the Auckland Domain last year for the Russell Watson show on Waitangi Day.

Yes, laughs this chatty Brit from his home just outside London, he's done a lot in the past decade or two - but only one show truly changed his life. And it wasn't decadent rock'n'roll or bikini babes posing on a beach lapped by the Indian Ocean.

It happened when that modest monk walked into his life in mid-'98.

For Nolan it was the beginning of an adventure into martial arts, Buddhism and Chinese politics. And also a couple of enjoyable trips to the original Shaolin temple in China where in AD495 the soldier monks created a set of fighting actions which eventually became codified as kung fu, the martial art taken to the world in the 70s by Bruce Lee, and American actor Carradine in that tele-series of the same name.

Nolan wrote a brief story outline and took it to the abbott who corrected some historical points and agreed to allow monks to become part of the touring party.

Then, for what would become Wheel of Life, Nolan drew around him a creative team whose work he knew and respected.

At the time he was doing productions with director Micha Bergese who was artistic director and choreographer of The Millennium Show in the central arena of London's Millennium Dome, and had done similar duties at the Dome's opening ceremony.

Set designer Mark Fisher's credentials included being production designer for rock tours such as Pink Floyd's The Wall, the Rolling Stones' Bridges to Babylon and U2's Popmart. With Sydney-born composer Barrington Pheloung (who wrote music for Truly, Madly, Deeply and Hilary and Jackie) plus assistant director/choreographer Darshan Singh Bhuller (a former dancer, rehearsal director, choreographer and teacher at the London Contemporary Dance Theatre between 1979 and 1994), Nolan had a team whose abilities matched his ambition.

Rather than performance royalties he settled on a set fee every month to be paid to Shaolin, whether the show was being performed or not, and with assistance from the Henan Provincial Cultural Affairs Bureau ( "they were very easy to deal with - that was a bit of a shock"), Wheel of Life became viable.

The creative team then went to the temple to get a sense of the place (Pheloung taping bells and songs to weave through his own music) and the story's blend of history, philosophy and kung fu came together.

The production tells of the monks' struggle to establish their temple and how they used farming tools as primitive weaponry which became crucial for self-defence when the temple was under siege from robbers and various emperors.

The Shaolin order dates from when an Indian Buddhist priest named Bodhidharma (Tamo in Chinese) travelled to China to see the emperor. At that time, the Emperor had Buddhist monks translating Buddhist texts from Sanskrit to Chinese. Tamo and the emperor disagreed on certain philosophical principles and Tamo went to the Henan temple to meet monks translating the texts.

The temple had been built in the remains of a forest that had been cleared or burned down. At the time of construction the emperor's gardeners also planted new trees. Thus the temple was named "young (or new) forest", "Shaolin" in Mandarin.

When Tamo arrived at the temple he was initially refused admittance so went to a cave and meditated until the monks recognised his religious prowess. Legend has it he bored a hole through one side of the cave with his constant gaze.

When Tamo joined the monks, he saw they lacked the physical and mental stamina needed to perform basic meditation practices. He taught them exercises modified from Indian yogas and this was the beginning of Shaolin kung fu.

It is impossible to identify when these exercises became "martial arts". The temple was in a secluded area where bandits would have travelled and so these movements were eventually codified into a system of self-defence.

For many Westerners, there seems a contradiction between the Buddhist principles of non-violence and Shaolin martial skills. However, the Shaolin practitioner is never an attacker, but the study of kung fu leads to better understanding of violence and consequently how to avoid conflict. Failing that, a Buddhist who refuses to accept an offering of violence (that is, an attack) merely returns it to the sender.

The Shaolin Buddhists are therefore not wilfully hurting anyone, merely refusing delivery of harm.

Other temples sprang from Henan because the original temple suffered repeated attacks and Shaolin practitioners would leave to teach privately or at other Buddhist or Taoist temples.

At the heart of Shaolin are the often mysterious and cryptic Buddhist and Taoist texts which have been much parodied ("Confucius say ... ") and were the basis for the philosophy behind the Carradine television series.

While that programme was influential in forming an international television audience's notion of kung fu, it was Bruce Lee's action films in the early 70s which created the kung fu cult in the West. Lee's movies have been an inspiration for as many rock bands and hip-hoppers as martial arts aficionados.

Lee's appeal is obvious. Beyond possessing breathtaking martial arts ability he also had, as did Carradine, an internal calm about his screen presence. He was self-assured and existed in a world of emotional stillness, but always in possession of a latent power.

And after spending the early part of his life in rock'n'roll culture, Nolan says travelling with Shaolin monks is a privilege for a similar reason.

"Well, there are no demands for 200 M&Ms in the dressing room with no red ones," he laughs, referring to the legendary rider on Van Halen's contract. "They want water and that's about it.

"We travel with a Chinese cook who attends to their dietary requirements; they are vegetarian, obviously. They get up early and meditate, and we have a teacher who travels with us for the children. We're like a mini-Shaolin temple travelling around.

"In most cities they'll head off to the local Chinatown for meals and things, and there are few if any tantrums. You have no idea what it feels like, after being out with rock bands, to walk into a venue and see 25 smiling faces of people who are genuinely pleased to see you and are without a whinge or a whine.

"They've seen a lot of the world now but I have never heard a monk judge anybody else or say the Western world is bad.

"They are just such wonderful people and despite what you see them do on stage with the kung fu, which can be exceptionally physical, they have a very relaxed and sensible outlook."

* Shaolin Monks: Wheel of Life opens at the Civic on Tuesday, August 13, for a short season.