The annual NCPA Dance Festival will kick off this September, with 36 sessions to be held in 16 performances over a period of 78 days. Themed “Dance Beyond Limits”, this year’s Festival signifies that dance can go beyond reality and lead the audience into a world of art full of infinite possibilities. Not only does this imply that the art of dance has boundless potential in itself, but it symbolises that the dancers keep challenging themselves in pursuit of excellence.
Dancing Together on Toes | Top Ballet Dancers Gather Up
Dance is a body language that knows no borders, and it’s also a cultural bond that brings all together. Renowned ballet companies and top ballet dancers from home and abroad will appear at this year’s Festival on invitation.
On September 20th-21st, Natalia Osipova, a Principal at the Royal Ballet, will join hands with the world’s top dancers to present Force of Nature, which blends classical and modern elements. Her signature classical ballets, modern masterpieces and ballet commissions will be staged one after another to create a night of ballet in her ultimate body expression.
On October 6th-7th, “Alina And Friends” World Ballet Star Gala, hailed as a “once-in-a-lifetime live experience” by countless netizens, will grace the stage. Nine principals from different leading ballet companies will share the stage on behalf of their respective genres of ballet, with classic ballet excerpts choreographed over the past 300 years.
From October 11th to 14th, the Mariinsky Ballet will return again. Superstars of ballet will gather up to form a stellar cast to perform the most classic masterpiece Swan Lake, as well as Le Corsaire, in which the dancers will show their strength and beauty to the full.
From November 6th to 9th, the Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg, honoured as “a new icon of Russian ballet”, will present two masterworks - Anna Karenina and Beyond Sin, with these literary classics to take on a new look in their distinctive “psychological ballet”.
From December 5th to 7th, the National Ballet of China Cinderella will be staged as a classic fairy tale on elegant toes. Rich in dramatic elements and performed in a humorous manner, this version has captivated audiences of all ages since its premiere.
Voices in Contemporary Dance | Global Masters’ Showcase
Contemporary dance is an avant-garde experiment free in form and a creative expression used to explore new frontiers in dance. At “Voices in Contemporary Dance” Global Masters’ Showcase, leading young Chinese dancers will appear on invitation with their new creative works and classics blending dance, music and theatre together.
From September 27th to 28th, Voices in Contemporary Dance - Global Masters' Showcase will present three world-renowned contemporary dance works - MINUS 16, CACTI and I Wonder Where the Dreams I Don’t Remember Go. It will be the first time for international master choreographers to work with outstanding young Chinese dancers to infuse the Oriental soul into international dance classics.
From October 1st to 3rd, the XIE Xin Dance Theatre will celebrate its tenth anniversary with In Satie / The Rite of Spring and From IN. For In Satie / The Rite of Spring, they will join forces with musician FU Yifei to deconstruct classic melodies and offer an unprecedented feast of cross-genre art. For the special version of From IN, their partners will be invited to the tenth anniversary celebration to jointly unleash fresh vitality from the heart.
On October 8th, the WEN Xiaochao’s Physical Theatre Look at Them! will unfold in an autobiographical style from a personal narrative perspective. With a person’s mental journey extending to a group of people’s inner world, it will explore the “wall” in each relationship.
On November 1st and 2nd, the 7th Season of Yabin & Her Friends’ The Moon Opera will be staged for tenth anniversary celebration. Since its premiere in 2015, the work has been put on worldwide for over 150 times. BI Feiyu, the original author of The Moon Opera, comments that the Moon Opera is the magnificent and uniquely charming soul of the East, in which WANG Yabin has captured and made it her own.
On November 15th and 16th, the Jiangsu Centre for the Performing Arts dance theatre commission The Rite of Spring will interpret the modernist masterpiece from a Chinese aesthetic perspective. Unfolding in a distinct, novel dance language and in a richly poetic context, it shows how these unknown young people held on with inflexible will and great passion in those days.
Dance Inheritance & Innovation | New Charm of Traditional Chinese Dance Drama
The Chinese dance drama, centred on the traditional culture, serves to connect the past and the future together through dance so that ancient Chinese classics should stride over time and space to resonate emotionally with contemporary people. The Chinese dance drama has already become a living carrier of the traditional culture. This year’s Festival features three Chinese dance drama commissions, which provide a contemporary expression of the traditional culture to promote art inheritance in dance.
From October 31st to November 1st, the China Oriental Performing Arts Group The Dazu Rock Carvings, themed Chongqing’s only world cultural heritage - the Dazu Rock Carvings, will unfold in 100 minutes to visualise the 400-year history of carving to focus on the stone carvers who carved the Dazu Rock Carvings.
From November 7th to 9th, the Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center poetic drama commission Nine Songs, directed by HU Yang, a young choreographer, will be put on the stage. Mythical characters are portrayed in dance to illuminate reality, with the traditional beauty interpreted in a contemporary context to refresh the mind from an Oriental philosophical perspective.
From November 20th to 23rd, the Jiangsu Centre for the Performing Arts national dance drama commission A Dream of Red Mansions will be staged with dance vocabulary to showcase the life experience of beautiful ladies. A demure and quaint group portrait will be drawn in dance to display the younger generation’s artistic reinterpretation of literary classics, paying homage to the traditional culture and perpetuating the spirit of A Dream of Red Mansions.
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