photo Daniel Schwartz

booking DANCE FESTIVAL beijing 2008

Beijing Modern Dance Company, as well as artists from the prestigious National Ballet of China, will be performing alongside some of the most innovative dance companies from America including Odyssey Dance Theater (Salt Lake City, UT), Kim Robards Dance Company (Denver, CO), and Silver-Brown Dance Company (New York, NY). Styles will vary from contemporary ballet and modern dance to hip-hop. RMB 120, 180 and 60 for students. For additional details, visit the official site. Tickets available through this site or on 6417 7845.
7.30pm, and a 2pm performance on Sat, Aug 16. Chaoyang Culture Center/TNT Theater (8599 6011)

The festival begins tonight and we thought it timely to reproduce Alice Woodhouse's interview with festival organizer Alison Friedman which first appeared in the latest Aug 14-27 edition of agenda.

May 23
Nederlands Dans Theatre II
RMB 80-580.
7.30pm. PLA Song and Dance Theater (6613 1718)

Not to be confused with Nederlands Dans Theater I or the now defunct NDT III, NDT II consists of 16 dancers aged between 17 and 23 and is one of Europe's most innovative and exciting modern dance troupes. Their combination of athleticism, superb technical skill and, most importantly, youthful enthusiasm was what won over the largely Chinese audience that caught their show at the PLA Theater last Friday night.

Beijing was the first stop in the troupe's first tour of China, and they performed three works during the two-hour performance. Sleepless (you can take a look at the video here), choreographed by Jirí Kylián, dramatically combined lighting, music and movement to create an unpredictable and hypnotic scene inhabited by a beautiful dancing shadow.

To Khan or not to Khan?

London-based choreographer Akram Khan led his dance company, the Akram Khan Dance Company, to perform alongside the National Ballet of China at Beijing's Tiaoqiao Theater this past weekend. Akram Khan has been influential in bringing together two very different dancing traditions: modern dance and an Indian dance known as Kathak and his latest work, Bahok is no exception. Bahok is Bangladeshi for "carrier" and what Khan hopes to convey is how cultural identity can be carried using the body. The dance is set in a waiting room of a train station or airport departure lounge, with a large indicator board hanging from above the stage. However, the characters that emerge on the screen are not departure and arrival times but rather symbols that echo the scenes on stage. So, when the Korean dancer tells a story from his childhood and the words are played on the screen, the letters also zig-zag, Matrix like, emphasizing the confusion and tension between the characters when they are having a dance-off.

The Really Useful Group's CATS began its run at the Beijing Exhibition Theater last Friday and fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber have until the 27th of this month to catch the show. Chinese audiences seemed to have enjoyed the musical, transfixed from the moment the meowing-singing actors crawled onto the Beijing stage. They tapped their feet to the melodies and enthusiastically applauded after the musical numbers. On the premier night of the second Beijing Cats tour (the first tour was in 2004), there was a distinct feeling of uncertainty before it begun, as if the Chinese viewers didn't quite know what to expect. It was a good show though, especially if you are a musicals or Cats fan. Even if you aren't, which I didn't think I was, the show still impressed.

The Concert Hall of the National Centre for the Performing Arts (former official name the National Grand Theater) opened to Dame Kiri Te Kanawa on Wednesday, and it was to a crowd that was mostly white collar Westerners and Chinese officials looking a bit confused and disgruntled. We most definitely appreciated having the renowned soprano so close, but with tickets for RMB 1,280 for the inner ring, we wonder how many appreciated the price.

To get you in the mood for this weekend's live comedy shows, we talked Chinese humor and fart jokes with the man behind the ChopSchticks phenomenon, Richard Robinson. For show times and venue see below.

tbjblog: How, why and when did you establish ChopSchticks?

Richard Robinson: I started ChopSchticks in the late ’90s in the Curiously Fragrant Harbor that is Hong Kong. My pal and I dug live standup comedy and we wanted to import our own "comedy comfort food," so to speak.

It sort of came together like an old "Little Rascals" episode: "Look, I have a busted wagon wheel!"

"Well, I have an old donkey!"

"And I have a carrot!"

"Hey, we have a SHOW!"

I'd done some open mic nights at comedy clubs after college and my buddy was into organizing events. We both worked in advertising so he knew airline and hotel sponsors and I sourced an alcohol sponsor and picked the comics. Next thing you know we had a show and we’re now in our tenth year.

tbjblog: Of all the acts that you have brought to Beijing, what sets the Chicago Improv-Allstars apart?

Designed by French architect Paul Andreu, China’s National Grand Theater is located just to the west of Tian'anmen Square. The building, which couldn’t be more different from the Stalinist seriousness of the neighboring Great Hall of the People, cost RMB 2.69 billion to construct and consists of three large halls – a 2,416-seat opera house, a 2,017-seat concert hall and a 1,040-seat theater. Criticisms of the egg-shaped building (you can find examples here and here) were given an extra boost in 2004 when the Andreu-designed extension of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport collapsed and killed two Chinese citizens.

Master hypnotists Dr. Chaos and Damien Noir will entrance Beijingers at 8pm this Saturday, September 22, at the Star Live. Thanks to our mad guanxi, tbjblog was able to catch up with the doctor of disorder (who claims, along with his dark cohort, to be “the world’s first dual hypnosis team” – find out more at their website).

As you’re soon to read in the October issue of that’s Beijing (currently at the printers – don’t you just love these early print deadlines?), the four-year-old Three Oranges Theatre is all set to celebrate the midpoint of one of their most ambitious projects yet with a week-long festival over the October Holiday …

Well, that was the plan, at least.