Pamela Yau

All eyes were on China on the eighth of August with the beginning of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing where grace through athleticism is as lauded as much as medals won. Undeniably years of training and practice have led these individuals to the world stage of the Olympics, all possessing an uncompromising degree of passion and devotion to their craft.

The same could be said of the ballerinas and danseurs of the National Ballet of China, who made their debut on one of the grandest stages in the world at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden during the week of July 28^th in the productions of Swan Lake and Raise the Red Lantern.

The story of ballet in China and that of the NBC has come a long way since the creation of the dance company on December 31^st, 1959. With ballet's evolution as an art form in China, from its establishment to current day, this type of dance has been thoroughly intertwined with the country's political and social history.

The Experimental Ballet Company of the Beijing Dance School, as the NBC was called in its early years, was notably established after a state decision to create national balletic training programs and academies. Firmly based in the classical ballet style of the Russian School, NBC enlisted the help of Pyotr Gusev, a contemporary of George Balanchine to build up its training regime.

Swan Lake, which the NBC performed at the Royal Opera House from July 28^th to the 30^th, is characteristic of the earliest phases of Chinese ballet as a part of its classical repertoire. First staged by the NBC along with such classical ballets of Giselle and La Cosaire, Swan Lake has been captivating audiences for over a century. The story of star-crossed lovers of Prince Siegfried and Odette, the beautiful maiden cursed to be a swan by an evil sorcerer can be said to be one of the greatest tragedies and most famous works in ballet.

Pirouettes, promenades, and leaps were executed with the greatest precision by the dancers of the NBC to the principal choreography laid out by Russian choreographer Natalia Makarova, who herself had played the part of Odette during her dancing career. Technical perfection characteristic of the NBC left little to the imagination as to the skill and dedication that these dancers possess in order to achieve seemingly statuesque poses en pointe.

As with most productions of Swan Lake, the audience collectively holds its breath as the swan, Odette, portrayed by Wang Qimin, gracefully glides on stage for all to look on with awe and desire. Odette's appearances in the ballet create the emotional arc of the production. From the first meeting between the lovers, the Prince's betrayal and the final reconciliation, every meticulous movement that Wang made fulfilled her role of a tragic martyr to love, making this treatment of Swan Lake more than worthwhile to watch.

Swan Lake may show the glorious beginnings of the NBC, but as the Chinese people were forced to adapt to new restrictions and regulations during the Cultural Revolution, so did the NBC. The Cultural Revolution played an integral role in many performing arts in the country from traditional Chinese opera to ballet. Government intervention in the arts led to the creation of propaganda pieces and saw the limitation performances pieces to only those deemed to promote the revolution.

But despite what the criticisms of this period, which some have deemed to have caused significant harm and curtailing of creativity during the Cultural Revolution, ironically it spurred on the NBC to begin to choreograph works that utilized both classical and Chinese choreography. The years leading up to the Cultural Revolution saw the creation of ‘revolutionary model ballets' the most famous being The Red Detachment of Women, which became one of the NBC's signature pieces during the revolution.

This blending of Chinese elements into classical ballet has carried on into the post-Cultural Revolution era of the NBC and its production of Raise the Red Lantern is no exception.

Based on the controversial 1991 movie by the same name directed by Zhang Yimou, Raise the Red Lantern is the story that touches on feudal China at the beginning of the 20^th Century. As a young girl is sold by her mother to a powerful mandarin to be his second concubine, Red Lantern becomes a story about forbidden love and an unforgiving society that cannot save itself from jealously and custom that aims to destroy any true love that may exist.

Many changes were made from the original movie to that of the ballet as Zhang Yimou personally adapted his own original movie, simplifying hundreds of pages of script into one page for the libretto of the ballet.

Raw and emotional, the dancing in the production seems almost uncharacteristic of the NBC's restrained elegance that it demonstrated in Swan Lake. Despair, desire, and devastation all find themselves expressed through the held positions and partnering of the male and female leads. With the backdrop of glowing red lanterns and Chinese Peking opera, this unhappy household is shown to be tenuously held together by feudalism and tradition.

As it should be, the dance on stage draws in the audience's attention while everything else seamlessly melds itself into the background to create the atmosphere of the ballet. But besides the dance, the score, composed by Chen Qigang, who is also the Music Director of the Opening and Closing Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, plays an immense role in Red Lantern as it acts as a driving force pushing forward the sentimental and emotional nature of the story.

It is not simply the movements on stage that are characteristically Chinese, but also the music as Chen goes beyond using traditional Chinese instruments to create the necessary effect for the production. At one point of the ballet, while the characters are onstage playing mahjong, the orchestra actually puts down their instruments and instead uses abacuses to create the desired sound effect of crashing tiles.

Raise the Red Lantern is thoroughly Chinese in feeling and morals, which just happens to be portrayed through the medium of dance. Asked in an interview as to define Chinese cultural characteristics, Zhang spoke of those qualities that "go beyond simply looking at the external, and reach into the internal culture and its spiritual heritage." Through its dancers, choreography, and music, Red Lantern exudes this delicate mixture, where it creates a one of a kind experience and mood meant to be savored and a representation of a period in Chinese history from which lessons must be learned.

Although the ballets of Swan Lake and Raise the Red Lantern staged by the NBC are different on many levels, they both have an uncanny ability to fit themselves into the annals modern Chinese history and that of the NBC. Their conclusions do not offer the illusion that all is right with the world. Instead, one must instead find peace within oneself with events of the past and have hope that there will be a better day.

 

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