Since its launch in 2012, the NCPA Dance Festival has upheld the tenet of staying high, producing new works and acting for the public good with diverse performances and activities.
The NCPA Dance Festival will be held for the tenth time this year. Themed “Dance for Everybody”, this year’s NCPA Dance Festival will kick off on September 29th and continue for 91 days, with 15 dance performances in 41 sessions presented on stage.
The Harbin Ballet The Nutcracker, produced by ZHANG Dandan, Managing Director, Artistic Director and Chief Director of the Harbin Ballet, in cooperation with many other top artists from at home and abroad, including the international choreographer Peter Quanz, is an excellent choreographic work that boasts of gorgeous and dreamlike stage scenery.
Still of
The Nutcracker
The Mariinsky Ballet's Swan Lake and Don Quixote will soon appear at the NCPA Dance Festival 2023. After a lapse of four years, the Mariinsky Ballet will return yet again with an all-star cast of classical ballet dancers to stage the most classic ballet masterpiece Swan Lake and the most comic ballet masterpiece Don Quixote.
Still of
Swan Lake by XIE Peitong
Still of
Don Quixote by Natasha Razina
The American Ballet Theatre (ABT), one of the world’s top ten ballet companies, is going to revisit the NCPA after 10 years apart. This time, the ABT will appear with an awesome lineup of 17 principal dancers to give five consecutive performances of the American-style ballet Giselle, a classic honoured as the Crest of Ballet.
Still of
Giselle
The National Ballet of China's The Little Mermaid, adapted from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale Daughter of the Sea, was created by the international choreographer John Neumeier, who was invited to direct and rehearse the ballet for its premiere in 2012. WANG Qimin, MA Xiaodong and QIU Yunting, principal dancers at the National Ballet of China, will have starring roles.
Still of
The Little Mermaid
La Esmeralda, adapted from the literary work of the same title, was tailor-made for the Liaoning Ballet by an international team, with the world-renowned choreographer Patrick de Bana as choreographer. The ballet features an amazing combination of the original plot and the Liaoning Ballet dancers’ performing characteristics. The storyline is rearranged in different temporal spaces, thus characterising this version by both medieval and modern styles.
Rehearsal of
La Esmeralda
The NCPA national dance drama commission The Railway to Tibet, which won the 16th Wenhua Award, will open for its 12th round. The all-star cast, including LI Xing, FENG Jingya and other winners of the Wenhua Award, will share the stage with outstanding dancers, including LUO Yuwen and LI Xiaohui, to act in this touching tale and kick off the NCPA Dance Festival 2023.
Still of
The Railway to Tibet
The Shanghai Dance Theatre dance drama The Eternal Wave, based on a true story about the revolutionary martyr LI Bai, features artistic elements including youth, red memory, romance and spying, which are all added to the drama on the basis of respecting history. In a form of expression unique to dance dramas, the red classic is interpreted anew, eulogizing those great heroes that have died a tragic but glorious death for the CPC’s cause of national liberation.
Still of
The Eternal Wave
The Xiexin Dance Theatre’s new masterpiece, T.I.M.E, choreographed by XIE Xin, stars CHEN Tian, an A-list guest dancer. With the heart exposed in the body alone, the dance will be staged with a life diary about the interaction between memory and time, to take the audience into the first half of the choreographer’s life.
Still of
T.I.M.E
In 2008, TAO Ye, DUAN Ni and WANG Hao founded the TAO Dance Theater. Their “number series”, created on the basis of minimalism and simple somaesthetics, have toured more than 40 countries and over 100 different art festivals spanning across five continents. The TAO Dance Theater has become one of the most contemporary Chinese dance companies that enjoy much acclaim on the international stage. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the TAO Dance Theater. They will stage five of their “number series” - 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14.
Still of TAO Dance Theater "Number Series"
The Cloud Gate Dance Theatre will have a on-stage reunion with the audience at the NCPA after a lapse of four years. Their Send in A Cloud, choreographed by Managing Director CHENG Tsung-lung, is set in the Bach Cello Suites played on the saxophone. Projected images and lines are intertwined in response to the pleasure, anger, sorrow, joy presented in the dancing body, so that the dancers are ttansformed into choreographers, telling a story about time lapsing in their body language.
Still of
Send in A Cloud
Extreme Land is set in an ancient path in northern Tibet, 4,500 metres above sea level, used to transport salt on the backs of animals in antiquity. With the song and dance as the carrier, it is themed “the snow mountain, the grassland, and inheritance”. The Tibetan folk culture, including history, music, clothing, poetry, ditties, odes and songs, finds expression in the dance, reflecting the human landscape and natural beauty unique to the snow-covered plateau.
Still of
Extreme Land
The Night for Top Dancers, launched by the China Dancers Association, is designed to bring Chinese top dancers and excellent dancing works to the fore. It is an authoritative, professional and glorious performance given by Chinese dancing stars in order to display the ethos of the new era in an all-round way from a panoramic perspective and set up a wind vane of dancing art in the people’s hearts.
In addition to the wonderful performances given by a dozen famous Chinese and foreign dance ensembles, a series of special activities will also be carried out at this year’s NCPA Dance Festival, such as a meet-and-greet party starring famous dance ensembles and dancers, a thematic interactive activity to invite the audience for an interaction in the theme space, and an on/off-stage dance tour, with the most authentic rehearsal scene revealed to the audience through live-streaming or blooper show. These online and offline activities are designed to highlight the theme - Dance for Everybody, i.e., everybody can dance.
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