Unspeakable, a modern dance to be staged at Beijing's Haidian
Theater on Saturday, will present Tibetan modern
dancer/choreographer Sang Jijia's view of the absurdity of the
world as inspired by French philosopher Albert Camus's Myth of
Sisyphus.
"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 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, the actor and his setting, is properly
the feeling of absurdity", wrote Camus in Myth of Sisyphus. These
words are important to Sang Jijia's conception of Unspeakable,
though not to all that he wants to express in the work.
Sang Jijia, the first Tibetan modern dancer, recently joined the
Beijing LDTX Modern Dance Company as a resident artist.
Choreographed by him, Unspeakable is the company's second
performance under the Spring Thunder Series, after Xing Liang's
Nijinsky in March.
"In Unspeakable, I try to combine dance and non-dance movements
to exhibit a kind of asymmetry," said Sang Jijia. "It represents
some of my thinking on the current conception of dance."
Born in Northwest China's Gansu Province, Sang Jijia graduated
from the Central University for Nationalities and became a dancer
with the Guangdong Modern Dance Company in 1993. He joined the Hong
Kong City Contemporary Dance Company in 1999.
Talking about his identity as a Tibetan, Sang Jijia said it
exerted a deep influence on him, but not directly on his
choreography.
"My thinking and aesthetics are fundamentally Tibetan, but I
don't use Tibetan elements as symbols in my work," he said..
Sang Jijia has received many dance awards, such as best
performer in the "Tao Li Bei" National Dance Competition and the
Gold Award in the Male Solo Class at the 7th Paris International
Dance Competition.
In 2002, he was selected to be one of the five winners of the
Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative to study at the Frankfurt
Ballet under William Forsythe for one year. Since then, he has
performed at many international dance festivals throughout the
world.
"The last time I presented my work in Beijing was in 2000," said
Sang Jijia. "I look forward to the audience reaction to
Unspeakable. It makes me both excited and nervous."
(China Daily April 7, 2007)