Dance Links China: Scottish Arts Council Scottish Delegates Visit 2008
Dance professionals from Scotland’s leading dance organisations spent several days in China last month building links with companies there and with the aim of pushing the boundaries of creative practice between Scottish and Chinese choreographers.
The trip was organised by the Scottish Arts Council and Vicky Rutherford from Edinburgh’s Dance Base kept a diary of their visit.
The visit began with a meeting with Neil Webb, British Council Director of Arts, China. Neil provided a potted history of the modern dance scene in China and explained some of the issues and challenges faced by Chinese dance companies.
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Next up, a meeting with Willy Tsao, Artistic Director and Sarabeth Berman, Program Director of LDTX (Lei Dong Tian Xia, translated as Thunder Rumbles Under Heaven) China’s first non-governmental and independent professional dance company. |
We were impressed by their international work and the interesting variety of programmes to nurture young choreographic talent and several potential opportunities were identified for joint working.
Next day we were off to the Living Dance Studio to meet choreographer Wen Hui and filmmaker Wu Wenguang. Their work involves collaborations with both professional and amateur dancers, actors, filmmakers, visual artists, writers and performers with an ‘organic’ ethos of free expression. They have already presented work internationally and were interested in developing further links with Scotland.
The whistle-stop tour continued with a visit round the vast complex of Beijing Dance Academy, with 56 studios this state-run academy prides itself on producing some of the most thoroughly trained dancers in the world.
From the vastness of the Dance Academy we moved on to visit Zhang Changcheng, Director of Beijing Modern Dance Company (based in Beijing’s old town district). BMDC undertake a range of international work including residencies, showcases and festivals. We learned of some of the challenges faced by the company in terms of generating audiences for modern dance and recognized some similarities with Scotland.
While half of the group headed to Shanghai we travelled to the fast growing city of Chongqing, right on the banks of the Yantze River to meet with English choreographer and teacher Matthew Hawkins and Rong Tao of Yu Dance to further investigate a possible collaboration with Dance Base to develop a joint work for presentation during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
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We were graciously invited to a private view of a work in progress by Yu Dance as a taster of Rong Tao’s idiosyncratic movement style. Their studio is nestled within the vibrant Huangjiaping arts district and Rong’s choreography clearly shows a direct response to surrounding space, architecture and environment. |
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Following this visit we look forward to welcoming Matthew and Rong Tao to Edinburgh in 2009 to introduce him to the Scottish artists and to continue our dialogue.
The opportunity to visit China was extremely interesting and we managed to cover so much in such a short space of time. We learnt a lot about the dance sector in China and although the structure of support for dance is quite different we were surprised to find a lot of common ground when discussing many issues. Some excellent contacts were made through rich discussion which can only be achieved when meeting face to face. I suspect some exciting projects will come out of this visit. Watch this space…..
The Dance Links China visit was supported with a travel grant through the British Council Cultural Connections.
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