Stepping out in three styles

• Source: Global Times
• [09:35 September 08 2010]
• Comments

"However, contemporary dance is more freestyle and acceptable for audiences."

In Jin's Shanghai Tango, drawn from the famous Chinese play Thunderstorm, in one powerful sequence she shows the central character's painful inward world by surrounding her with dancers wearing transparent raincoats and never letting her escape from their circle.

"The most palpable difference between classical ballet and contemporary dance is that ballet tends to be up in the sky while contemporary dance is down to earth," Jin explained.

The finale saw an attempt at a fusion between Western and Chinese ballet, as well as classical ballet and contemporary dance. Dancers from the three companies improvised to the music of Bach's Air on the G String, each style showing its own traits.

Fleur Derbyshire Fox, director of learning at ENB, felt the improvised section was fantastic. "There is freedom there, and I found the ballet dancers less inhibited because they felt more comfortable with the contemporary dancers."

Though the event was based on ballet, Jin's contemporary dance style obviously had more appeal for the audience. Contemporary dance enjoys a broad range of genres and readily adopts ballet, tango and folk dancing.

The 65-year-old dance enthusiast Zhou Mosheng said: "I was impressed by the contemporary dance the most. It focuses on the ensemble and the individual."

"This is more than performing dance to an audience. This is teaching them how to enjoy it," Jin said.