REPERTORY PROGRAM:

ALL RIVER RED (RITE OF SPRING)
Duration: 38 minutes Choreography:
Li Han-zhong, Ma Bo
Music: RITE OF SPRING, composed by Igor Stravinsky, performed by Philharmonia Orchestra Conducted by Igor Markevich (recorded in 1959)

Stravinsky’s RITE OF SPRING premiered in 1913, signifying the dawn of a new era in music. This music has inspired many western choreographers, and now, BeijingDance / LDTX's Chinese choreographers offer their unique version, ALL RIVER RED. The work reflects how contemporary dance has been developing in 20th century in China against all odds. ALL RIVER RED shows not so much a comfortable fusion of East-meets-West, but a direct and violent confrontation between those adhering to tradition and those aspiring to innovation.

THE COLD DAGGER (Excerpt)
Duration: 10 minutes
Choreography: Li Han-zhong & Ma Bo 
Music: Quasi Una Fantasia, String Quartet, Henryk Gorecki
Dancers: The Full Company

THE COLD DAGGER (excerpt) an explosive staging of confrontation and humanity. This ten-minute version of an evening-length work plays with the Chinese idiom that likens life to a game of chess, wherein dancers act as life-sized pieces in an intricately choregraphed match of the traditional Chinese weigi (go) game.

SKY
Duration: 20 minutes
Choreography: Song Ting Ting and Liu Bin
Music: Shaker Loops, John Adams
Dancers: 4 women, 3 men

SKY is an investigation of environmental destruction and preservation. This work uses an intricate physicality and unique movement vocabulary that experiments with a shifting center and transferring of body weight.

ONE TABLE N CHAIRS
Duration: 15 minutes
Choreography: Willy Tsao, Li Han-zhong and Ma Bo
Music: Selection of traditional Chinese Opera
Dancers: The Full Company

ONE TABLE N CHAIRS (excerpt) is a modern revival of the traditional "one table, two chairs" format of Chinese Opera. The choreography embodies the spirit of traditional Chinese opera at the same time subverts its conventional form and content.


FULL EVENING PROGRAM:

UNSPEAKABLE
Duration: 65 minutes
Choeography: Sang Jijia
Music Arrangement: Sang Jijia
Dancers: The Full Company

A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man suddenly feels like an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life is properly the feeling of absurdity.　- Albert Camus

The ethnic Tibetan, Chinese modern dance artist Sang Jijia was internationally acclaimed as "the most perfect dancer". Sang was the first Asian artist ever selected for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative Program. He studied choreography with William Forsythe until 2006. On his return Sang created Unspeakable in which he combines brilliant technicality with pedestrian movement to evoke extreme psychological tension and asymmetry. 

IN SEARCH OF QI - THE SOURCE OF ENERGY
Having worked with Asian dancers for more than twenty years, Artistic Director Willy Tsao has developed a unique technique class based on the Chinese concept of “Qi”. Through a series of floor exercise, participants will be led step by step to find their source of energy at their “Dan Tian”, or center. Dan Tian can liberate explosive energy in a gracefully controlled form. For participants with basic dance training.

HISTORY OF DANCE IN CHINA, PAST
AND PRESENT
Willy Tsao has been a major figure in China’s modern dance community for over 20 years, dedicating incessant effort towards the development of the art form. He can offer a unique perspective on how modern dance has developed against the odds in a lecture/discussion format.

TRADITIONAL CHINESE FOLK DANCE MASTERCLASS
Participants will have a chance to learn the basic movements from traditional Chinese folk dances, and explore how the company's choreographers use these movements to create modern works.

REPERTORY MASTERCLASS
A studio class for more advanced dancers. Students will be taught actual sections of the choreography from BeijingDance / LDTX’s current repertoire, getting a sense of how the movement flows, use of different muscle groups, and how the pieces are sequenced.

POST PERFORMANCE Q&A
The Company answers questions and talks with the audience after the performance.