Closing gala of Beijing Dance Academy
The closing gala of the Beijing Dance Academy’s ballet competition featured guest performers from some of the world’s leading ballet companies, Cheng Yuezhu reports.
As ballet dancers breeze across the stage and fling their lithe figures into a tour en l’air, the audience cheers at each entrechat, allegro and pirouette, awed by their ultimate demonstration of elegance, strength and control.
This was the scene at the theater of the Beijing Dance Academy on Oct 23, where the awards ceremony and closing gala performance took place for the 2018 Beijing International Ballet Invitational for Dance Schools.
The gala featured a series of classic and contemporary ballet excerpts from the award winners and guest performers from world-leading ballet companies, including the Finnish National Ballet, Boston Ballet and Hamburg Ballet.
The soloist ballerina from the Hamburg Ballet, Lin Xue, is a graduate from the Affiliated Secondary School of Beijing Dance Academy and a former winner of the silver medal of the junior group in the 2008 International Ballet Invitational. Arriving in Germany to further her studies in 2009, she has been part of the Hamburg Ballet since 2011.
“Dancers who participated in our competition and graduates from our school are now not only performing in the National Ballet of China, but on the global stage in cities as diverse as Hamburg, New York and Helsinki. It shows that the teaching standards of Chinese ballet are recognized around the world,” says Zou Zhirui, dean of the ballet department at the Beijing Dance Academy.
Zou is one of nine judges taking part in the competition. The jury is composed of renowned dance performers and educators from China, Denmark, Russia, France, Australia, the Netherlands and the United States, covering ballet styles from every corner of the world.
Chairman of the jury, Frank Anderson, is a former director of the Royal Danish Ballet and the Royal Swedish Ballet. He first visited China in 1985 and then again in 1995, where he soon recognized China’s ballet education system as a hidden treasure and he has paid close attention to its cause ever since.
“The jury here has around 300 years of cumulative experience. We will use our hearts, our brains and our experience to guide ourselves to find the best dancers,” Anderson says. “We are looking for talent, potential, presentation, body, beauty, musicality, honesty, passion, heart, quality and technique. These words, put together, spell ‘artistry’. They are just the tools for the dancers to attain artistry.”
The competition has been held biennially since 2006. Entering its seventh year, the competition has attracted more than 800 young dancers from 70 institutions and dance companies from more than 50 countries and regions.
This year’s competition received 147 applications from 20 countries. Aged between 14 and 25, the applicants are either students or professional dancers who have been working for less than two years. Among the applicants, 62 of them passed their initial screenings via video submission and were later invited to Beijing to take part in the contest.
Since the competition encompasses both classical ballet and contemporary ballet works, the dancers are tested not only on notable ballet pieces, such as pas de deux from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, but also a series of modern dance works by three renowned contemporary choreographers.
One of the modern pieces, Beyond Mist, was created by the director of Beijing Dance Theater, Wang Yuanyuan, who took inspiration from the eponymous poem by the renowned poet Luo Fu. With its obscure metaphors and melancholic imagery, the poem about unrequited love has been given new life through the form of a modern ballet duo.
“Using the universal body language of ballet, the piece tells a Chinese story,” Zou says. “Chinese choreographers often draw inspiration from China’s folk tales or classical literature, but on the other hand, the dance style itself could tell a Chinese story with its exquisite expression and reserved movements.”
Creating a Chinese ballet and the Chinese method of ballet instruction is what the Beijing Dance Academy aspires to achieve, apart from researching and rehearsing classical and modern ballet pieces, Zou says.
“Although it originated in Europe, ballet has been constantly transformed in different regions. China now has strengths in a variety of aspects. It’s time for us to develop a ballet style with a Chinese temperament,” Zou says.
At the awards ceremony, Anderson described the overall standards of the competition as remarkable, adding that the competitors were well prepared for the competition.
The competition named five first-prize winners, six secondprize winners, 11 third-prize winners, and offered two special jury prizes.
Han Yufei, one of the firstprize winners and a student of the Beijing Dance Academy, talked about his experience of participating in the competition. “I performed a duet in the competition, which belongs to the Danish Bournonville style,” says Han. “Mr Anderson gave us a few detailed suggestions on ways to improve our performance.
“I have made progress in my overall ability and technique over the course of this competition.”
However, this year’s top award, the Prix de BDA, fell vacant.
According to Anderson, it is fundamental to master the techniques, but not every dancer has acquired artistry.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of dance being incorporated into China’s higher education system, when the Beijing Dance School turned into the Beijing Dance Academy in 1978. In tandem with the competition, a series of academic events on dance education were held to promote international discussion about dance education.
“As China’s only specialized higher institute in dance education, the Beijing Dance Academy has the responsibility and duty to lead the development of dance education, promote educational exchanges and the international development of dance education,” said Guo Lei, president of the Beijing Dance Academy, during a dance education symposium after the competition.