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How can we define the relation between tradition and modernity?
A question asked the world over - and now placed at the very
heart of the performance by Beijing Modern Dance Company's
principal dancer Gaoyan Jinzi and her mother Luo Lili. This
mother-daughter constellation presents a uniquely doubled
event - two generations, from the pre- and post-cultural revolution
eras; two languages of dance, from the strictly learnt discipline
of physical movement to a striving for freedom; and two cultures,
mutually determining and yet contradictory.
Gaoyan Jinzi and Luo Lili present six pictures exploring their
own personal stance on the issue of how tradition develops
into the modern. Their approach gives centrality to the biological
evolution of the gene: "In the course of evolution, genetic
material has constantly reproduced itself and, in doing so,
generated a multiplicity of forms. In other words, these variations
are the natural result of evolution; in terms of the genetic
code, though, they imply revolution, a rejection of what has
previously been there." In line with this interpretation,
the six danced images are entitled "Copying", "Inheriting",
"Chaining", "Variations", "Breaking
Apart", and "Nothingness".
In a figurative sense, this suggests both traditional and contemporary
dance are constantly re-forming themselves under the mutual pressure
exercised by the perpetual creation of contradictions. These choreographed
segments find their musical counterpart in the pieces composed especially
for this new production by Liu Sola, Chinese composer, singer and
writer, and "enfant terrible" of China's new music scene.
The Beijing Modern Dance Company was founded in 1995 under its
first artistic director Jin Xing, designed to integrate the
diversity of ethnic groups and cultures into the new Chinese
context and connect China's dance tradition with elements
of western contemporary dance.
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| Jue - Awakening
Dance and choreography: Gaoyan Jinzi & Luo Lili
Music: Liu Sola (Composition), Mu Yang Jing, Zhang Yangsheng
Gaoyan Jinzi, born in 1976 in Tianjin, studied at
the Beijing Dance Academy, and since 1995 has been a dancer
and choreographer with the Beijing Modern Dance Company (BMDC),
founded in the same year and headed until 1998 by Jin Xing
(cf. "Person to Person" at the IN TRANSIT 02 festival).
She produced her first choreography for the BMDC in 1994,
and has since developed eleven other pieces. Her mother, Luo
Lili, born in 1947, has been working as a dancer since
1976. She has produced numerous dances and dance plays herself
and curated a number of festivals.
Liu Sola is equally at home in a range of music, from
jazz, to blues, to traditional Chinese music. After her early
success as a writer and composer, she went abroad for a number
of years. Her first album in the USA entitled "Blues
in the East" was in the top ten of the World Music charts
for weeks. She returned to China in 2000. She premiered her
new group, featuring both traditional Chinese musicians and
American jazz and rock musicians, at the transonic 2003 festival
at the House of World Cultures.
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