33ʳᵈ Macao Arts Festival

Rite of Spring

Peacock Contemporary Dance Company

28, 29/4
20:00
Grand Auditorium, Macao Cultural Centre


Duration: Approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes, no interval


Remarks: Contains smoke effects

 

Please switch off all sound-making and light-emitting devices. Unauthorised photography or recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Thank you for your co-operation.

 

Director and Choreographer: Yang Liping
Visual Director: Tim Yip
Composers: Igor Stravinsky and He Xuntian
Literary Director: Liang Gelou
Lighting Designer: Fabiana Piccioli
Projection Designer: Tobias Gremmler
Technical Director: Sander Loonen
Rehearsal Directors: Gong Zhonghui and Li Yimeng
Principal Dancers: Da Zhu, Maya Dong and Qixin
Executive Producers: Nathan Wang and Jane Yang
Creative Producer: Farooq Chaudhry
Technical Producer: Miao Chunyu
Project Manager: Max Ma
Co-production: China Shanghai International Arts Festival, Sadler’s Wells, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Brisbane Festival, Stanford Live, Edinburgh International Festival, China Dancers Association, Beijing Poly Theatre Management Co., Ltd, DYRS Group and Forever Solo Arts

Programme Notes

A full-length production for 15 performers, Yang Liping’s Rite of Spring utilises Stravinsky’s iconic score alongside original compositions inspired by traditional Tibetan music. Collaborating with a number of renowned artists, Yang reimagines the notion of pagan ritual sacrifice as set out in Stravinsky’s musical narrative through Asian spiritual philosophies, symbols and aesthetics. The work reflects Yang’s artistic ambition to further refine her artistic “voice” by offering her interpretation of one of the most revered musical scores for dance in the 20th century.

In this radical retelling of The Rite of Spring, originally choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (1913), the female sacrificial protagonist volunteers her body for sacrifice as an earthbound duty to her community, with the knowledge her spirit will return purified of the cruelties and unpredictable nature of humankind.

Creative producer Farooq Chaudhry comments: “Yang Liping’s Rite of Spring powerfully demonstrates how a Chinese artist can take a western iconic score and give it a new cultural relevance. It’s an exhilarating reinterpretation drawing on Tibetan concepts of the cycles of life and rebirth and the indivisible unity of humankind and nature.”

Choreographer’s Notes

The century-old The Rite of Spring is a masterpiece. This time I have worked with several artists in an attempt to reinterpret it with Oriental philosophy and aesthetics.

The Rite of Spring is conventionally interpreted as a bystander’s denouncement of the sacrifice of the victim, whereas I have tried to explore the value and meaning of life from the victim’s perspective. Death, be it active or passive, is inevitable for each and every human being. Even under the most humble and helpless circumstances, however, a person can still ponder how to make their death more valuable and meaningful, which is the noblest dignity of life. In this dance theatre version, the victim experiences hesitation, helplessness, pain, and fear against death and eventually opts to “sacrifice herself for the redemption of humanity”, elevating her life beyond its physical end thereby finding a new value for existence.

Conveying abstract ideas in the form of stage performances is a challenge. I have collaborated with Tim Yip to try to incorporate certain elements from traditional worship rituals of Chinese ethnic minorities and certain symbols from Oriental philosophy into the dances and visuals of the work. Coupled with the original music by Igor Stravinsky, the music created by He Xuntian for the first and third sections contributes to the full-length dance theatre production. Xuntia’s scores have been established as a pioneering type of modern music that incorporates elements of Tibetan and other ethnic music. By ingeniously integrating these artistic elements of Oriental philosophy and aesthetics, we hope to convey the Oriental values of life and explore a brand new angle of presenting Rite of Spring to the audience.

By Yang Liping

Biographical Notes

Yang Liping, Director and Choreographer

Yang, from the Bai ethnic group in Yunnan Province, is a National First-class dancer and the vice chairman of the China Dancers Association. Although she has never received formal training, she has loved dance since childhood and has become a unique and outstanding dancer in China with astonishing natural talent.

Her major works include Spirit of the Peacock, Moonlight, Two Trees, Love of the Peacock, among many others. As a versatile talent, she has also worked on numerous productions. Yang directed, choreographed and led Dynamic Yunnan, which won five awards at the 4th Lotus Awards. In addition, her film Sunbird, which she wrote, directed and starred in, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Montreal World Film Festival.

Tim Yip, Visual Director

As a world-renowned visual artist, art director for stage and film and fashion designer, Yip continues to explore and convey his aesthetic concept “New Orientalism”, which is his interpretation of ancient culture as a means to inspire the future. He works widely within the fields of contemporary art, clothing, theatre, film, literature and other creative spheres. For “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, Yip won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction, becoming the first Chinese to be awarded with an Oscar. He is also the 2001 winner of the British Film and Television Academy award for Best Costume Design.

In the field of dance, theatre and opera, Yip has collaborated as a set designer, a costume designer, or both, with many world-renowned choreographers, directors and companies, including Robert Wilson, Franco Dragone, Akram Khan, among others.

He Xuntian, Composer

He is a distinguished composer and professor. In 1981, he developed the Three Periods Theory and the Theory of Musical Dimensions. In 1982, he developed the Renyilv Duyingfa Method of Musical Composition. His albums Sister Drum and Voices from the Sky, were released in more than 80 countries, selling several million copies. In 1996, he established a new method of musical composition and one year later, he put forward the Theory of Interspace. In 2003, he composed Images in Sound, which he calls mankind’s gift of primordial music to all species of the natural world. In 2008, he produced Ehe Chant, a record that includes Freudian pre-consciousness as a composition technique. His works have been premiered and performed globally by many leading orchestras and ensembles, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Liang Gelou, Literary Director

Liang is a member of the China Dancers Association, a prominent new playwright, director and online dance critic. He has written, planned and directed many large-scale stage productions.

Fabiana Piccioli, Lighting Designer

Piccioli trained as a dancer and graduated in philosophy in 1999 at Sapienza University of Rome. After a short dance career in Brussels, she became production manager for the Romaeuropa Festival in 2001. In 2005 she moved to London to join Akram Khan Company as technical director and lighting designer.

In 2013, she became a freelance lighting designer, collaborating with international artists all over the world. She is the winner of three Knight of Illumination Awards in 2013 (the Robert Juliat Award for Opera), 2017 (the ETC Award for Dance) and 2018 (the Robert Juliat Award for Opera).

Sander Loonen, Technical Director

After a four-year apprenticeship at the Rotterdamse Schouwburg in the Netherlands in the 1990s, Loonen has developed as a true all-round technician and designer. Equally versed in lighting, sound, video and staging, he fills the gap between artistic ambitions and technical feasibility. He has worked with international creative teams, in all aspects of live performance and installations, and has developed the ability to steer a production towards a fulfilling project. He has designed and managed lighting, video, sound and staging for a great variety of artists, including Yang Liping, Negramaro, Aakash Odedra, Akram Khan, among others. He has been based in Rome since 2017.

Farooq Chaudhry, Creative Producer

Former professional dancer Chaudhry is co-founder and producing director of Akram Khan Company, and is also the international creative producer for China’s national dance icon Yang Liping. Chaudhry plays a key role in advancing Akram Khan’s artistic ambitions through innovative business models and creative strategies. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged Chaudhry in a list of the world’s top hundred cultural actors and entrepreneurs in 2008. In addition, Chaudhry was awarded an honorary doctorate from De Montfort University for his services to dance and made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to dance and dance production.

Nathan Wang, Executive Producer

Wang, a practising solicitor in Australia, graduated from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia with a Bec LLB degree. Between 1996 and 2008, Wang worked as a manager at Jardine Fleming Securities Hong Kong, as an executive director in the International Equity Sales department of Morgan Stanley, an executive director in the Global Wealth Management department of Morgan Stanley, and also in the Ultra High Net Worth Wealth Management department of UBS AG. He was inaugurated as the general manager of Yunnan Yang Liping Arts & Culture Co. Ltd. in 2008 and led seven core programmes: Dynamic Yunnan, Echoes of Shangri-La, The Peacock, Under Siege, The Winter of the Peacock, Pingtan Impression and Rite of Spring.

Gong Zhonghui, Rehearsal Director

Gong graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy in 2006 with a major in choreography. He has been one of the most successful dancers and choreographers from the academy. Zhonghui worked with Paper Tiger Studio, Living Dance Studio and Free Dancer Studio. In 2012, he took the role of execution arts director at Beijing Modern Dance Company. His major works include Village Doctor, Grass Trilogy and Pavilion.

Li Yimeng, Rehearsal Director

Li was the only Asian dancer in the Off-Broadway show Fuerza Bruta. She graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy and is a modern dance choreographer. She was a resident dancer of the Beijing Modern Dance Company and her representative works include Twelve Chinese Zodiacs, Blooming of Time, The Rite of Spring and the large-scale original dance drama Ming Antu. She was awarded the Gold Award at the 6th Taoli Cup Dance Competition, the Silver Award at the 4th CCTV Dance Contest, and was shortlisted at the 1st Beijing International Ballet and Choreography Competition.

Da Zhu, Principal Dancer

Da Zhu is a young Chinese dancer and was a resident dancer of the Beijing Modern Dance Company from 2014 to 2017. He starred in Yang Liping’s large-scale marine theme dance Pingtan Impression and Under Siege. He has also performed in several other productions, including the modern dance theatre Twelve Chinese Zodiacs, Blooming of Time, The Rite of Spring and Oath Midnight Rain.

Maya Dong, Principal Dancer

Dong is a member of the Bai ethnic group. Raised in a rural village in Yunnan Province, she grew up with nature. In 2004, when Dong was 12, Yang Liping recognised her talents and invited her to join the company. Dong has danced in Yang’s most important works such as Dynamic Yunnan, The Peacock, and Under Siege.

The success of her recent solo, Whip, has led her to short film collaborations with Oscar nominated British film director Mike Figgis. Dong was nominated for the Emerging Artist Award at the 19th National Dance Awards (United Kingdom).

Qixin, Principal Dancer

A member of the Bai ethnic group in Yunnan Province, Qixin graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy. She joined the Peacock Contemporary Dance Company after graduation in 2014. In 2016, she participated in The Winter of the Peacock domestic tour and Under Siege domestic and international tours. In 2017, she starred in the dance theatre Pingtan Impression, playing the main character “Pingtan Blue”. Qixin will star in the Rite of Spring, playing the main character.

 

Disclaimer
The Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao Special Administrative Region Government provides liaison and technical support to the project only. Any views/opinions expressed by the project team are those of the project only and do not reflect the views of the Cultural Affairs Bureau.