Dancing in the spotlight on opening night

From China-daily


With just a few days until the Olympics begin, the buzz surrounding what to expect from the Opening Ceremony has everyone talking - and guessing in the dark.

Anxious and excited, crazed fans, ordinary citizens and experts are obsessed as they scratch their heads to think of how the Opening Ceremony will kick-start the Beijing Games.

But, among the crowds, there are of course, those who aren't partaking in the guessing games.

Shen Wei is one such individual. In fact, the principal choreographer behind the Opening Ceremony has his lips sealed shut about the events to unfold on Friday night. 

 

 

Still, in the meantime, many cannot help but wonder how the Chinese-American has influenced the show that is expected to dazzle millions worldwide.

Will the Opening Ceremony be a spectacle of tradition, or should Olympic fans expect something a little more avant-garde? Figurative, or abstract?

"Abstract and avant-garde? I don't know - it depends on your definition of both," he says from the other end of the phone in his hotel room at the Olympic Village in Beijing. "You can tell a story in one word, or, you can tell it in one hour. But, you have got to have a statement - beauty alone could be that statement."

No luck getting an answer. Eventually, Shen coughs up a couple more words - depth and philosophy - but they, too, do not offer much in the way of Olympic details.

"I'm not interested in showing what's on the surface - you know, images that currently account for basically how people in the West see China," he says. "I want to reach deeper and go underneath. I want to show that this culture has more depth, and that it has an intriguing philosophical aspect."

Shen, who spent his time reading ancient poetry and Taoist writings when he first arrived in New York 13 years ago, is back in his home country with a double task: The Chinese need an international perspective - and the world needs to see a Chinese point of view.

 

                                                     Shen Wei's first dance-opera Second Visit to the Empress



Shen, who is one of the few non-resident artists on the Olympic creative team, is expected to showcase a country that is as proud as it is progressive. Known for his painterly and idiosyncratic choreography, Shen has been called to devise a plan to please both sides.

"I have in my mind both the 1.3 billion Chinese audiences and the 5.4 billion international audiences," he says. "The choreography will not be too specific, meaning, we will not have too many of those overused cultural symbols."

"At the same time, this is not a museum show. I'm not going to use one hour to make a showcase of history that no one can understand. In an occasion like this, you've got to entertain."

For years, Shen has been creating visual spectacles, though on a much smaller scale. His signature piece Connect Transfer sees dancers sweeping their paint-dipped hands and feet on the canvas floor, a reference to his enduring passion for painting and to the free flow of Chinese ink on paper. It is the kind of creativity that has sent a powerful message to the world.

It may seem surreal, but Shen's transformation from a young migr to a leading international choreographer defies common imagination.

Foreign newspapers have described his career as "fast-moving" and his success "meteoric". But, according to the man himself, the secret lies nowhere but in the Law of the Nature.

"You must adapt," he says, speaking of his recent experience on the Olympic creative team. "My career is built outside of the country, where there is a different way to mount a production. It took me a little while to recognize the difference in getting things done in China and America. Now, I very much understand."

Shen's reputation as a master of modern dance choreography is largely based on his ability to create interesting and abstract forms of movement involving raw and pure motions. His signature piece Map, which premiered at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2005, amounts to a "moving dictionary" of his complete dance vocabulary.


"It's in the blood - everything you do has to do with who you are," he says, referring to the fact his dance technique, dubbed by some critics as the "Natural Body Development Technique", has its origin in both Eastern and Western philosophy.

"It concerns the different ways bodies are moved," he explains. "The internal energy, energy that travels circularly inside the body and is used by dancers to motivate various body parts, is an ancient tai chi idea."

The movement, Shen explains, was combined with Western body movements, including the use of momentum.
Since his official appointment last April, there has been speculation that Shen's recipe for the Opening Ceremony will be "fusion" - that is, if he's eaten at enough Manhattan restaurants.

A look into the man's past offers some more concrete clues.

Born in Hunan in 1968, the year of the monkey, Shen describes himself as "always being a mover".

Following in the footsteps of his parents, Shen began training as a local opera performer at the age of 9. The role assigned to him, quite fittingly, was that of a wusheng, or fighting man, which calls for several somersaults.

"That experience really helped me understand the Chinese tradition. Opera is for me the best form of performance art ever born in China - combining music, vocals, acting and acrobatics all in one and evolving for hundreds of years," he says.

Shen's foray into modern dance was the result of an unexpected turn. In 1988, after studying opera for a decade, Shen entered a dance competition in Hunan.

"I was in it for the money. But since I had no formal training, classical or otherwise, I had no choice but to dance my own dance. And, they gave me the first prize," he recalls.

He pauses for a brief moment, "There are certain things you are meant to do with your life."

A misstep turned out to be a major step and Shen has never looked back since.


In 1995, he left everything behind and moved to New York after receiving a scholarship from the Nikolais/Louis Dance Theater Lab. Five years later, he founded his own dance company, the New York-based Shenwei Dance Arts.

In July 2007, nearly two decades after Shen's fateful switch to modern dance, the now-celebrated choreographer honored his memories with a New York premiere at his first dance-opera Second Visit to the Empress, or erjingong, which was also one of the first operas he learned back in Hunan.

In retrospect, Shen says his decision to pursue modern dance was in a sense precipitated by the larger social climate of the time.

"It was in the late 1980s, and there was a hunger for change in the Chinese society," says Shen, who has taken dozens of trips to various parts of the country in the past year.

"I went to the ancient Silk Road, to see how China has reached out and been reached by the outside world today as well as Tuesday. The country is on a fast train of change."

Luckily for Shen, he thrives in an atmosphere of change. In anticipation of the Opening Ceremony, Shen has been working with top-notch Chinese dancers since December, preparing them for a different world on the Olympic stage.

"It's tough because these dancers, amazing as they are, have no previous modern dance training. I have to show them how to use their bodies in a completely new way - to explore every possibility," he says. "I want the audience to look and say, 'I've never seen people move this way, but it's still beautiful'."