If local dance fans are disappointed by the month-long delay in this year's Beijing International Dance Festival, the quality and number of productions it will showcase is not going to help.
In 2004 and 2005, the annual event lasted over a month and presented 16 and 14 productions respectively from dozens of countries. This year, the festival is to play host to a mere eight productions, including two song and dance galas, over just 10 days. Besides Chinese dance, Georgian folk dance and Russian ballet provide the only international flavor.
The opening show Georgian Legend, to be performed at the Great Hall of the People from January 10 to 12 and the closing production A Handful of Wild Jujubes The Forbidden Fruit at the Great Wall on January 19 at the same venue, both rich in regional folk arts and culture, may entrance the audience.
But neither is the best the 10-day festival has to offer. If you love Chinese dance, The Prairie performed by the Beijing Dance Academy at the school's theatre on January 18 is a much better choice.
Choreographed by Zhang Jianmin, professor at the academy, to original music composed by Wu Shaoxiong, the dance is adapted from a play of the same title by Cao Yu (1910-96), one of modern China's greatest playwrights.
Premiered in September 2004 at the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Beijing Dance Academy, The Prairie has won critical acclaim for its fresh movements derived from Chinese traditional dance numbers, clear characterization of personalities and expression of the inner world of characters through choreography.
The Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg is one company you should not miss. It brings to the festival Tchaikovsky: The Mystery of Life and Death and Russian Hamlet: The son of Catherine the Great at the Great Hall of the People on January 13 and 14.
The other Russian ballet company scheduled to perform Don Quixote at the Beijing Exhibition Hall Theatre on January 17 is a small and unknown ensemble of mediocre talent. Ironically, this is the company's sixth Beijing tour since 2000, and every time, the local presenting company promotes it as "the state ballet theatre of Russia."
Each year this season, there are a couple of Russian ballet companies touring Beijing with performances of Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty or Nut Cracker. The local promoters always publicize the companies as "state" of "prestigious" theatre with many award-winning ballerinas.
This is not fair to the viewers who depend on the organizers for reliable information. And now, it seems that the organizing committee of the Beijing International Dance Festival is going the same way.
The spokesman of the festival's organizing committee said that the event was postponed for a month, to avoid interruption by the many New Year's concerts of end-December. But according to an anonymous manager whose company will present one of the shows in the festival, the organizing committee had only three productions on their list by end-November.
Obviously, the festival has failed to attract some wonderful productions, such as the best-selling dance Dynamic Yunnan featuring star dancer Yang Liping and the National Ballet of China's new productions Napoli and La Sylphide directed by Frank Anderson, artistic director of the Royal Danish Ballet. Both shows will run in Beijing around the time of the festival, but are not on its list.
When launching the annual dance festival in early 2003, the Beijing municipal government decided to hold it in December so that it could attract most of the dance shows of the New Year season. At the same time, they launched the Beijing International Drama Festival to be held every April and renamed the annual Beijing Music Festival held in October as the Beijing International Classical Music Festival.
In the third year of their existence, both the drama and dance festivals find themselves in uncomfortable situations. Only the Classical Music Festival went through well, thanks to the professionalism of its management.
Will the other two festivals survive 2006? The insiders have no idea either.
(China Daily January 5, 2006)
