Photo by Zhang Luoping
BEIJING, Aug. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Announced by the creative team of Yabin and Her Friends’ seventh season, theatrical dance The Moon Opera will have its world premiere at the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) October 4-6, 2015, and is also to be staged at the Shanghai International Arts Festival October 19-20.
As a project funded by the China National Arts Fund for 2014 and commissioned by the 2015 Shanghai International Arts Festival as part of the Young Artists Initiative, The Moon Opera was created and produced by Yabin Dance Studio and co-produced by Jiangsu Province Performing Arts Group Co., Ltd. Adapted from a novel of the same title by celebrated Chinese contemporary author Bi Feiyu, the project is directed, choreographed and starred by Wang Yabin.
Yabin Studio has invited experts and talents from around the world to contribute: well-known Chinese virtuoso opera singer and artist Pei Yanling as Peking Opera advisor; Chinese composer Guo Sida and Polish composer Olga Wojciechowska, Kimie Nakano from the world-famous Akram Khan Dance Troupe as costume-designer; Matt Deely as set designer; and lighting designer Willy Cessa.
While Yabin Wang is the choreographer herself, she works in collaboration with two assistant choreographers, Fan Lei and Zhang Zhi. The dancers include Yabin Wang herself, Li Xing, Shan Sihan, Bi Ran, Qian Kun and Wang Mingchao.
“Over the past seven years,with over a hundred dancers and artists participating in Yabin and Her Friends, Genesis, Dream in Three Episodes and The Moon Opera, such works not only enrich Chinese dance creatively but also places it on the world stage.” says Wang Yabin, in a press conference.
Offering a more pronounced flexibility and depth than the novel, The Moon Opera presents a work of minimalism. Adapting The Moon Opera to dance has been Wang Yabin’s dream for many years, not only due to the engrossing nature of Bi Feiyu’s novel but also because in it, she discovered the central theme of “where to pin one’s life”. Wang herself pins her life on the art of dance. In dance she sees the “pain of life”, which, she says, teaches one endurance and how to face those we love.
Mr. Fu Jun, Professor of Peking University, President of Harvard Club of Beijing, and formerly advisor to the President of the Executive Council of UNESCO, writes in the preface of the Moon Opera for Wang Yabin: “The Moon Opera is not merely a story of one individual, it is a story about all of us. Ask yourself: How many times have you also struggled between dreams and realities? How many times have you succeeded or failed? And on what values do you judge success?”
Since its first season in 2009, Yabin and Her Friends will have had seven by the end of this year: Season One Dancing with You; Season Two Keeping Watch; Season Three Seeking; Season Four Triennial of Yabin and Her Friends; Season Five Genesis生长; Season Six Dream in Three Episodes; Season Seven The Moon Opera. As of early 2015, the number of total live viewers of the dance series has reached more than 100,000.
