It's Mikala!

Aug. 8, 2008: the eyes of the world were on Beijing’s Olympic opening ceremonies. Modern dance choreographer Shen Wei unleashed a group of paint-drenched dancers onto a massive scroll unfurled in the center of the Bird’s Nest. They writhed, leaped, rolled and flitted across an ultra-modern representation of a traditional Chinese canvas, using their bodies to make a series of brushstrokes depicting a simple mountain scene. This performing art piece, called the “Scroll Sequence,” immaculately coupled modern dance technique with a traditional art form, thrusting modern dance’s existence and place in China into the consciousness of viewers at home and abroad.

Luckily for both the curious and the devout, the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) inaugural International Dance Festival kicked off on Oct. 24 and runs through Nov. 24. Thirty performances across 12 stages go down throughout the festival, showcasing the work of heavy-hitters from both home and abroad in the fields of ballet, contemporary dance and traditional Chinese dance.

While the festival opens and closes with performances by the National Ballet of China, Yang Liping’s The Peacock and American choreographer John Neumeier’s The Little Mermaid, respectively, the festival performance we are most anticipating involves the homecoming—17 years in the making—of Shen Wei, a Chinese-born modern dance choreographer and performer who has been based in New York since 1995.

Dance History

It comes as no surprise that modern dance, a movement that grew out of a rebellion against the structure of traditional ballet in the early 20th century, has been slow to catch on in China, even though it’s been here since the 1980s. It’s a subversive art genre that focuses less on technicality and more on a dancer’s physical interpretation of emotions and feelings. While there are certain techniques that students can learn, it’s not unusual for performers in the genre to make up new steps and movements as they go, resulting in a dance form that’s completely individual, totally creative and fiercely emotional. In many ways it’s the opposite of what Chinese education traditionally emphasizes.

Although China’s art scenes blossom in the country’s major hubs like Shanghai and Beijing, modern dance actually first came to China by way of Hong Kong, thanks to Willy Tsao, who many credit as the father of China’s modern dance movement.

Tsao saw his first modern dance performance, which had been banned on the Chinese mainland until 1980, in his native Hong Kong in 1970. Just a few years later, while studying at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, he was able to take a modern dance class as an elective—and he was hooked.

In 1979, he returned to Hong Kong, bringing modern dance with him and founding the city’s first modern dance group, the City Contemporary Dance Company.

A few years later, in 1986, choreographer and actress Chiang Ching worked to establish a scholarship program that would allow Chinese dancers to study at the American Dance Festival. After attending a Limón technique class taught by Betty Jones, one of the scholarship recipients, Yang Mei-qi, asked Charles Reinhart, director of the festival, why the dancers fell to the ground. In this well-documented story, Reinhart started thinking about whether to explain fall and recovery or offer some other technical answer but, instead, he said, “Why not?” Yang Mei-qi quickly decided that this art form must make its way to China.

Out of this experience and exchange, the Guangdong Dance Academy was born in Guangzhou. In partnership with the Asian Cultural Council, the American Dance Festival used its Institutional Linkage Program to send American teachers to the new academy, and the first graduating class became the Guangdong Modern Dance Company in 1992, marking the founding of the first professional modern dance company on the Chinese mainland.

Around 1986 or 1987, Shen Wei, a Chinese-born modern dancer and choreographer who has been based in New York since 1995, was captivated by a modern dance performance he saw in Canada. Then he heard people talking about the Guangdong Modern Dance Company and decided that he wanted to audition with the outfit, hoping to “really understand modern dance.”

“Those years were such a fantastic time, so inspirational for my generation, especially in China,” he tells us. “So open-minded. So new.”

For him, being part of China’s first modern dance company made him feel like a rock star because it was “so avant-garde, so modern” and he was so happy to do something that had never been done here before.

Also in 1992, the Beijing Dance Academy held its first modern dance class, effectively bringing the form to the capital and paving the way for the founding of both government-affiliated and independent companies. In 1995, the teachers and students from the academy’s inaugural modern dance class started the Beijing Modern Dance Company (BMDC).

The company’s first artistic director, Jin Xing, joined the People’s Liberation Army as a 9-year-old boy and worked his way up the ranks to achieve colonel status as a member of the military’s dance troupe. This dance colonel in 1996 underwent sex reassignment surgery and is one of the few transgender women to be recognized by the Chinese government—making her not just a pioneer of modern dance but also in gender issues. When she left BMDC, Tsao took over where she left off.

Jin Xing currently lives in Shanghai with her three adopted children and German husband, and she owns the contemporary dance company Shanghai Jin Xing Dance Company. Tsao broke away from BMDC in 2005 to found Beijing Dance/LDTX, one of the city’s four major dance companies as well as one of its most active, hosting the Beijing Dance Festival each summer.

In addition to the Beijing Dance/LDTX festival, the Living Dance Studio, founded in 1994 by dancer Wen Hui and documentary filmmaker Wu Wengguang, throws the Crossing Festival each fall in Beijing.

These festivals, as well as a smattering of performances by troupes from both home and abroad, mean that modern dance has found its place in Beijing, even though it remains a fringe art appreciated by a small, but growing, audience.

Modern Dance Today

Alison Friedman, founder and creative director of Ping Pong Productions, a company that facilitates performing arts exchanges between China and the rest of the world, first came to Beijing as a Fulbright Fellow studying the development of modern dance in China. As the foremost authority on modern dance in China, she says the country’s modern dance scene has picked up momentum quickly, but has a long way to go.

In just the 10 years that she has been here, she says there have been two big changes: increased audience awareness and “more of everything.”

“There are more festivals, competitions, events. There’s more diversity,” she says, later adding that this is relative, because, “Before, there was nothing. So it’s an increase—but from nothing.”

The major problems that she and others point out tend to be related to a lack of government support (although they mostly acknowledge that this is getting better), a dearth of money-making opportunities, a small audience and limited formal instructional platforms.

We all know the romantic image of the starving artist, but perhaps not as well as China’s modern dancers. Friedman points out that there is not a “critical mass, so people don’t pursue modern dance because it’s too difficult or there are just too few options,” and choreographers aren’t working on modern dance because there’s more money in choreographing citywide, TV and government galas and extravaganzas. This lack of money-making opportunities has led to a lack of active modern dance choreographers, which is problematic for dancers who need to perform someone else’s creation. Without choreographers working and dancers dancing, the business won’t get easier or more accessible—an issue Friedman calls a “vicious cycle.”

Tao Ye, who danced with Shanghai Jin Xing Dance Theater and then BMDC before launching TAO Dance Theater in 2008, delves a little deeper into this issue, explaining that dancers should be pure, hard-working and persevering, but that this kind of dancer is hard to come by these days.

“In today’s China, there’s a serious shortage of talented performers, and it’s the result of the age of rampant materialism,” he tells us via email.

Moreover, the basic costs of sustaining a dance company, or even a freelance dancer’s career, which includes rehearsal spaces, travel and training, among others, add up quickly. Only recently has the government moved to start subsidizing flights and other travel expenses for Chinese dance troupes going abroad.

For a form of dance that was banned until 1980 and was viewed as a potentially threatening Western import in its early stages, state support of non-government-affiliated troupes marks a “huge change in attitude,” says Friedman. It’s especially important because dance festivals and performance halls around the world are clamoring for Chinese modern dance troupes, even if audiences at home are only slowly trickling in to fill seats.

Perhaps the slow build up of an audience shouldn’t be seen as such a huge problem, though. As Tsao points out, modern dance audiences in New York aren’t exactly packing the house, either.

“It’s always a form of high art enjoyed only by the sophisticated group of people in the society. New York, although named the capital of modern dance, has only a relatively small number of audiences when compared to the other ‘popular’ arts and performances,” he explains, adding that the growing interest in modern dance among China’s younger set reflects a “stronger and more independent mind” among this group.

Despite the Beijing Dance Academy offering modern dance courses and majors, Friedman says formal training “is still pretty limited and not very scientific. It’s whatever a teacher wants to teach.” But, where formal training may come up short, opportunities for informal instruction, such as the occasional class taught by masters and teaching events held on the sidelines of dance festivals, have increased, offering something to those with an undeterred will to dance.

Other opportunities for instruction and exchange can be found at the Living Dance Studio at the Caochangdi Workstation, an independent art space focused on performance art, documentary film and video art. Founded in 1994 by dancer Wen Hui and documentary filmmaker Wu Wenguang, Living Dance Studio offers modern dancers and modern dance lovers a space to learn, practice and interact—all for free.

Some techniques cannot be taught, though, whether learning opportunities abound or not. Tao believes that “in dance, or modern dance, the most important thing is the understanding of one’s own body, and to get to this understanding requires a lot of time.”

Although these difficulties are being addressed and eased, it still begs the question: should China’s aspiring modern dancers just plan to go abroad for formal instruction and performance opportunities? Well, that depends on who you ask.

Tao Ye doesn’t seem to think so, and warmly invites those interested in studying the form to come to his school.

Willy Tsao urges these dancers to stay in China, where there is a growing market and where an artist’s work will be “more significant and relevant to his culture.” He does, however, acknowledge the spirit of adventure and the need for exploration that many young artists harbor, and he’s not completely against indulging that. “So my suggestion is to travel as much as possible, then come back to China and start to do the real and meaningful work.”

Shen Wei, the poster child for Chinese modern dancers and choreographers living and working and establishing their careers abroad, explains that if dancers can find the audience, information, space and support that they need where they are, then they should stay put.

“If you don’t have water near your house, then you need to go to the other side of the mountain,” he says. “Do whatever it takes to make you grow, whatever it takes to let you contribute to the world.”