CrossCurrents

It’s a vast, mysterious land filled with terra cotta soldiers, bamboo trees and pentatonic music. And while Pittsburgh has seen its share of dazzling acrobatic troupes, the Beijing Dance Company, presented by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, was the first to connect both the sweeping historic landscape, thousands of years old, and the artistic future that China has to offer.

Beijing Dance Company was somewhat a mystery in itself. It appears to be an official company of the Beijing Dance Academy, which is China’s national (and only) school for producing professional dancers.

Maybe it was the name. Often an internet search confuses Beijing Dance Company with, yes, Beijing Modern Dance Company and BeijingDance / LDTX, the first company to be independently founded outside the federal government.

BDC’s repertoire proved to be rooted in what is called the Chinese traditional classical dance tradition. But it turned out to be much more than that.

What we saw was an enormously disciplined 33-member troupe in a pivotal state of transition, perhaps in a similar category as India’s Nritiyagram Dance Ensemble, with one foot in the past, the other in the future.

China had a strong influx of Russian teachers as early as the 1920’s and it was the Russian ballet technique that was installed at the academy when it was founded in 1954. Perhaps BDC comes closest to the famed Moiseyev Dance Company that set the standard for folk dance by presenting a large contingent of dancers trained in ballet.

But in its last performance in Pittsburgh, the Moiseyev devoted the last part of its program to what might be termed a contemporary ballet based on Moussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain.” The Beijing company presented a similar finale, “The Yellow River,” inspired by China’s second longest river, often called “the cradle of civilization.”

This epic piece, so “Bolshoi” in its impact, used a large cast to create a moving panorama of movement, literally full of the rolling hills and valleys, where the dancers collected in a group, and the surging currents that rippled through the choreography.

They were matched by a musical score that had the groundswell of a Rachmaninoff piano concerto. But with movement and music that was thick with such images, this “River” didn’t really need the panoramic pictures projected behind it.

Most of the program drew heavily on China’s history and traditions, including “The Thousand Hands of Boddhisattva,” where the women were bedecked in golden costumes and manipulated the long fingers of their gloves with such precision, and “Flying Fairy,” a solo featuring Zhao Qiao, who artfully created colorful brushstrokes with her long ribbon-like sleeves.  “The Lone Crane,” a remarkably performed solo by Ma Jiaolong, contained rippling, wing-like arms one minute and leaps that had their own flight pattern.

Other selections indicated that the Beijing Dance Company is redefining traditional dance from new inspirations. Chen Weiya, one of two resident choreographers (he also created “Flying Fairy”) drew from Xian’s recently-discovered terra cotta warriors and translated it into a bold, percussive showpiece for the men, “Emperor Qin’s Soldiers.”

Zhang Jianmin, well-known as the choreographer of the film, “House of the Flying Daggers,” created a new production of China’s version of “Romeo and Juliet,” called “The Butterfly Lovers,” and kept to a free-flowing translation of ballet. But he also produced “The Spirit of Bamboo,” almost New Age by Western standards, where the men softly waved and dipped in an intriguing meditation.

These were dancers who had to be able to define everything, beginning with the delicacy of the fingers and the supple maneuvering of a fan. On top of the minute details, they had a rigorous technical clarity with assertive finishes and powerful leaps that echoed the Russian teaching. But their sky-high extensions and fluid phrasing that were distinctly Chinese.

As the company grows (and Chinese contemporary dance is still in its infancy), it would be shrewd if BDC staff or even guest choreographers were encouraged to experiment with the movement. while remaining true to the boundless inspirations of the Chinese culture.

FYI: China might be termed a sleeping giant when it comes to contemporary dance and little about it is known here in America. So a brief, although admittedly incomplete, timeline might help. After being banned from 1960 to 1980, Chinese modern dance began to absorb various styles from the West. Shen Wei, a founding member (1992) of Guangdong Modern Dance Company, the first of its kind in China, elected to come to America in 1995 to choreograph and is now based in New York City. For the past decade or so, groups like Paul Taylor Dance Company and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater have been invited to perform to great acclaim. 

Then San Francisco-based Margaret Jenkins brought her collaboration with Guangdong Modern Dance Company to tour America in 2009 and appeared at the Pittsburgh Dance Council. And BeijingDance / LTDX, the first contemporary group to be founded independently of the government, has come to the United States on a number of occasions since its founding in 2005.

Beijing Dance Company headed for the West Coast last year, but was sent on a tour of Boston, New York, Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh this fall, which is a major step for the group and Chinese dance at large. Locally we have seen alumni such as Ying Li and Jiabin Pan, former principal dancers with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre who returned to their homeland to run the Suzhou Science and Cultural Arts Centre (SSCAC) Ballet and Yanlai Wu, Chinese traditional classical dancer who runs Yanlai Dance Academy in the North Hills. The three knew each other during their student days in Beijing.