The solo dance The Spirit of the Peacock earned Chinese dancer and choreographer Yang Liping national and international fame in 1986 and earnt her the moniker “Peacock Princess” ever after.
Yang began formal dance training at the age of 11 when her family moved to Xishuangbanna, in the south-west Chinese province of Yunnan. Xishuangbanna borders with Burma and is populated by the Dai ethnic group, who are synonymous with the peacock dance.
It was in her 20s, when she moved to Beijing, that she began making the peacock dance her own.
More than two decades later, she directed, choreographed and starred in a series of dances named Dynamic Yunnan and won a number of awards at the National Lotus Awards in 2004.
Yang Liping Source: Yang Liping
During the process of organising Dynamic Yunnan, Yang travelled to remote villages of the 26 ethnic tribes in Yunnan and selected dozens of villagers to feature in the performance.
She never stopped exploring. She's set to perform her own version of the classic performance Rite of Spring at the Melbourne International Arts Festival. The performance is yet another experimental product of modern dance.
Yang Liping Source: Yang Liping
Yang told SBS Mandarin that Rite of Spring and the previous performance, Under Siege, were both directed by her for international art festivals.
They are different from the art form of traditional dances.
Comparing to 'Under Siege', which was still a story with traditional Chinese essence, 'Rite of Spring' posed a new challenge.
She was exploring ways to re-represent a Western classic from an Chinese perspective.
The original Rite of Spring was written in 1913 by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and based on his imagination of an ancient Russian ritual, where a young girl was chosen as a sacrificial victim and danced herself to death.
Rite of Spring Source: Melbourne International Arts Festival
It was considered as an exceptional artwork and the first-night performance in Paris caused riots.
Over the next century after its debut, people read many things from it, including the worship of nature, the fear of death and the longing of Spring.
Although Yang admits that “many musicians think that this piece is cursed, and cannot be controlled”, she said “the feeling and the background of Rite of Spring is not foreign”.
According to Yang, there are a few similar folk tales in Yunnan, some of which described very similar rituals in spring.
In her version of Rite of Spring, Yang plants her own interpretation of life and death.
Rite of Spring : Yang Liping Contemporary Dance Source: Melbourne International Arts Festival
In addition to the original performance, where the story was told without an ending, Yang's interpretation was completed with Karma.
“It contains not only sacrifice and fear but also something brighter with hope, reincarnation,” she said.
Reincarnation is a philosophical concept from Buddhism, which is deeply rooted in Chinese culture, death is not the end of life, nor the other way around.
There is a never-ending circle of the life itself.
He Xuntian, a well-known Chinese musician was invited to Australia by Yang. He expanded the duration of the music from 38 minutes to 70 minutes, because “it has to take this long to express the philosophical concepts from the eastern culture”.
Rite of Spring // Yang Liping Source: Melbourne International Arts Festival
He usually composes with a very mythical style, which Yang believes to be a great fit of the original performance.
The art and costume design was done by Timmy Yip, who always emphasises eastern philosophies. Yip won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction and Costume Design in 2000 for his work in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
When 'Under Siege' was performed in Melbourne, the audience was treated to several visual features, including one thousand pairs of hanging scissors.
This time, Yang said audiences would be overwhelmed by the symbolic concepts in Rite of spring: the six-character mantra from Tibetan Buddhism, the lion embodying power and rule, the female dancer who was the victim yet was reborn, and the peacock which brings life and hope.
Yang was not worried that there may be cultural differences, or gaps, which could confuse the audience.
Rite of Spring // Yang Liping Source: Melbourne International Arts Festival
Under Siege // Yang Liping Contemporary Dance Source: Supplied
Rite of Spring : Yang Liping Source: Melbourne International Arts Festival
“It is not a rigid expression of the eastern culture—art itself is more than that. Art is created to express the emotion that the entire humanity shares.”
And that was why she created her own version of Rite of Spring, by telling a western story with an eastern form of art.
The Rite of Spring will be performed in Melbourne on Oct 3- 6.
