Jinyang, the ancient name of Taiyuan city, was founded two thousand and five hundred years ago, developed over the Spring and Autumn Period of five dynasties, peaked in the Tang Dynasty, and was burned down over 3 days in the Song Dynasty. Fortunately, posterity has been able to unearth historical relics and sites, among which were many Buddhist temples. It has since been dubbed Chinas ancient city of Pompeii.The composer grew up with influences of Buddhism and Taoism. The acquisition of local natural sounds, the clear and pure female voice with plain male voice, and drum from local villages, all combines to shape the Jinyang city that blurs space and time. With the unique characteristics of world music, the composer divides the work into three parts, that is, Cultivate Oneself, Release Souls from Purgatory, and See All Sentient Beings. It outlines the old image of the ups and downs of human civilization.
The work Talking Goods begins from the ‘random opening of a coke can, the seemingly trivial meaningless collision and extrusion constructs an interesting soundscape. The inflectional storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect circuitously penetrates in modern metal tonality, the performance of string, Pipa, Cong and Zheng, or fast or slow, the dancers moving point, the timely cuts in multichannel interactive electronic music rhythm... The object, language, sound, and tone melt together, which is a subtle and ordinary leap into a special music experience.
Rags Love is about five rags in room 501, unit 8 of a flat. Their life may not be complicated, but all of them have a great story. Though busy, they spare some time practicing art. They occasionally sentimentalize about life, and gradually fall in love with each other in mutual comfort. As the arrival of a new member - super rag Awei, great change is about to happen. How can Juan Mao, Hua Gu, Li Li and Da Hei with different personalities fully display their talents, and turn the tide? The musical showcases 12 original songs, happy and sad together, with exaggerated humorous dance. They reflect the identities and unique values of the ordinary people from the angle of rags.
In the Steppes of Inner Mongolia depicts the past, present and future of the Mongolian steppe by nine movements: ‘Past reviews the carefree nomadic lifestyle of the Mongolian people, which is a kind of harmonious culture between human beings and animals; ‘Present, faces to the degenerated prairie, the intemperate mining, agriculture, and urbanization, which directly lead to the worsening of the ecological environment; Followed by the uncertain ‘Future, which may be a dystopian world without ‘Anda, but also the rebirth of prairie.
Throughout the performance in this dance theatre, Tibetan choreographer Wanma Jiancuo sets the context in a fictional future where human civilization is declining through its birth, development, death and rebirth. Finally all creatures become extinct and are replaced by machines and robots. Wanma tries to explore how technology, such as wind power, influences us throughout the history of evolution.
The play takes Mr. Ms feast as its context. The invited guests (the audience) are asked to join the Wechat group through two-dimensional code scanning. The mysterious Mr. M uses voice commands and randomly selects seven people from the Wechat group. The selected seven are guests of the feast from different social classes and they attend the feast with different purposes. During the play they conduct hypocritical social performances of ‘the upper class at first, but then fight crazily for the so-called mysterious gift. Sartre once said: others are the hell. The law of the jungle among animals and human beings greed and desire were reflected vividly in the play, and the hypocrisy of the seven people gradually fades with Mr. Ms game instructions. This is a story of crime and punishment, the third eye, a mysterious Mr. M and then the strange diners. How will everything end?
As a screenwriter and director, Shang Lei graduated from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Peking University in 2007. His drama works include What was Make-believe has Become Reality, The Birthday Party, Ulysses in Mental Hospital, Loves Conditional Expression, Expressionless Person, Hamlet Sonata and many others. In July 2012, he was among in the final 6 of the ‘Tian Qinxin New Writing Plan and went to the National Theater of Scotland in Britain. Hamlet Sonata was presented at the Beijing Fringe Festival, and publicly shown in No.9 Theater in Beijing in December that same year.The story is about K and S who meet by chance on the subway. Later, S finds out that they are neighbours in the same residential community, and K has had an eye on her in a social networking website for a long time. It was then that their relationship starts to change.K later contracts a strange disease, which voids him of the ability to smile and makes him subject of ridicule. He desperately tries to recover his ability to smile and plans to meet someone who might be able to help him. Can he recover his smile? What will happen between him and S? A confusing and intriguing situation follows.
Shen Yili graduated from the Shanghai Theatre Academy as a drama performance major and has had leading roles in Peony Pavillion, Palace of Eternal Youth, The Jade Hairpin, The Story of Sima Sheug-yu, Pei Shaojun and Li Qianjun and participated in opera highlights such as Dream in the Deserted Garden, Pursuit of a Dream and The Drunk Beauty. Shen Yili also participated in performances and lectures in Britain, France, Spain, America, Taiwan and Hong Kong, to actively promote the development of Kunqu Opera. Inscription is adapted from the traditional Kunqu opera Soup For Treatment of Jealousy. It tells the story of woman in civilian clothes, Qiao Xiaoqing, who has both talent and beauty, but is sold to a man as his concubine and has to suffer the wrath of jealous wives. This work concentrates on the role transformation in Inscription. The performer plays different roles, transforming from Qiao Xiaoqing, to Du Linaing and others, and then back to Xiaoqing. In the 20-minute performance, a folded drama appears with many fascinating transformations.