Waking up the aging bodies in dance

Dance Theatre When My Cue Comes, Call me, and I Will Answer

Presentation（in part）and Discussion

Time: 18:00－20:00, 11th, October.

Actors: CAO Zhiguang, LIU Guilin (Retired ballet dancers from Central Ballet)

Guests for Discussion: Nanako Nakajima(Scholar of Dance Study, Dance Dramaturge), Kai Tuchmann (Theatre Maker)

Moderator: WANG Mengfan ( Independent Theatre Director and Choreographer)

Location: Goethe Institut China

Address: Square 798 Art District, No. 2 Jiuxianqiao Road Chaoyang District, Beijing.

Language: CN/EN

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When the aging ballet dancers are already not able to fulfill the standardized ballet movement, apart from the ballet in their memory, what else can they do? How can the previous body memories be transformed into another type of dance?

Since April 2019, Wang Mengfan, with her creative team, have been working with retired ballet dancers Cao Zhiguang and Liu Guilin on her new production When My Cue Comes, Call me, and I Will Answer. In this piece, two retired dancers will share their own pondering over dance. Through the process of telling, they each found an alternative way to dance.

Two dancers will present a short part of this piece When My Cue Comes, Call me, and I Will Answer, through which a discussion on aging body in dance will be triggered.

The dance dramaturge of this piece Nanako Nakajima will start from introducing the different dance contexts in different social scenarios, combing through and commenting on various artists’practice on expanding the topic of “aging body in dance”, including Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Jérôme Bel, Ohno Kazuo. She will also elaborate on the modernity represented by these two retired Chinese ballet dancers in a Chinese social context, meanwhile forming conversation with German theatre director Kai Tuchmann, landing on the perspective of how the modernity in a body sense has walked into “aging” in contemporary China. Kai Tuchmann will also bring forth his own field of expertise - documentary theatre -to react and comment on the above topic. The discussion will be moderated by the director/choreographer Wang Mengfan.

BIOGRAPHY :

In 1952, he was admitted to the dance class of the Central Academy of Drama, where he studied Chinese opera with Kunqu performance artists Han Shichang, Bai Yunsheng and Hou Yongkui. In 1954, he was admitted to the ballet major of the Beijing Dance Academy and was personally taught by the Soviet dancer and choreographer Pyotr Andreyevich Gusev. In 1959, he entered the Central Ballet. He has played a major role in such large-scale dance dramas as "Swan Lake", "Notre Dame de Paris", "Red Detachment of Women", "Ode to Yimeng". His choreographic piece "Ghost Dream" won the first prize of Yangcheng International Dance Festival; "Nan Yue Emperor" won the Wenhua Award of the Ministry of Culture of China; The pas de deux "Pickup Jade Bracelet" won the prize in the Varna International Ballet Competition.

In 1973, Liu Guilin was admitted to the Ballet major of Beijing Dance Academy. In 1979, she entered the Central Ballet. She has participated in famous Chinese and foreign ballet repertoires including playing one of the four little swans in "Swan Lake"; and "Don Quixote", "Sleeping Beauty", “Giselle”, "Red Detachment of the Army", "Fish Beauty", "The New Year’s Sacrifice". In 1996, she served as artistic director at the Cultural and Art Talent Center of the Ministry of Culture and participated in the organization of the 1997 Hong Kong Reunification Celebration. She had also led the Central Art Troupe of the Ministry of Culture to perform at the China Year in France.

Dr. Nanako Nakajima is a scholar and a dance dramaturg. She is Valeska Gert Visiting Professor 2019/2020, Free University Berlin. Her dramaturgy includes luciana achugar's "Exhausting Love at Danspace Project " (2006-07 New York Dance and Performance Awards, ‘The Bessies’), 砂連尾理's "Theater Thikwa plus Junkan Project," Ong Ken Sen's "OPEN WITH THE PUNK SPIRIT! Dance Archive Box," Sebastian Matthias' "x/groove space". Nanako received 2017 Special Commendation of Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy from the Literary Manager and Dramaturgs of the Americas. Her publications include Dance Dramaturgy (Palgrave, 2015), The Aging Body in Dance, co-edited with G. Brandstetter (Routledge, 2017); 老いと踊り, co-edited with K. Toyama. (Keiso Shobo, 2019), Performance Research On Ageing (& Beyond) co-edited with R. Gough (2019).

Kai Tuchmann is a theatre maker, based in Beijing and Berlin. His stagings and dramaturgies were invited, among others, to I Dance Hong Kong (2016), Seoul Marginal Theatre Festival (2017), Zürcher Theaterspektakel (2017), Kunstfest Weimar (2017) Festival d’Automne à Paris (2017), Wuzhen Theatre Festival (2018), and Asia Society New York (2018). Kai is a member of the Dramaturgy Faculty at China's Central Academy of Drama and of the Performing Arts Management Faculty at Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. He is also a Board Member of the Marvin Carlson Theatre Center in Shanghai and New York.

Born in 1990, Wang Mengfan works as an independent theatre director and choreographer. Her theatre project includes "50/60 - Dance Theater with Dama" (2015/16) and "The Divine Sewing Machine" with Children. Her work taps into the relationship between our body and movement with the life and society. In 2018, she participated International Forum of Berliner Theatertreffen as one of the scholars. At the same time, she is selected as “Dance Hopeful (Hoffnungsträger)” by German dance magazine tanz in its yearbook 2018.

Director/Choreographer: WANG Mengfan

Performer: CAO Zhiguang, LIU Guilin

Production Supervisor: Fabrizio Massini (Italy)

Producer: ZHANG Cui

Text: CHEN Danlu

Composer/Sound Design: TAN Shuoxin

Dance Dramaturge: Nanako Nakajima (Japan)

Stage/Costume Design: LI Xingni

Light Design: XU Yin

Choreography Assistant: HU Chengcheng

Visual Design: LiiDesign

Photography: WU Shi

Supported by: Ibsen International

Venue Support: Goethe-Institut China / Inside-Out Theatre

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