Shattering the stereotypical notion that East and West shall never meet, China’s Peacock Contemporary Dance Company is bringing a new version of The Rite of Spring from director and choreographer Yang Liping to Stanford Live, Dec. 6–8, promising a multifaceted perspective on this iconic work.
The Rite was Igor Stravinsky’s third major ballet (after The Firebird and Petrushka) to be commissioned by impresario Sergei Diaghilev for his company, the Ballets Russes. Engaging the very best artists of the day — choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky and scenic and costume designer Nicholas Roerich — the premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on May 29, 1913, is apocryphally said to have caused a riot. What’s beyond dispute is that over the past century, countless performances have immortalized the work.
Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, Sadler’s Wells, one of the world’s leading dance organizations, was in the process of developing two very different versions of the ballet. One was a reimagining of choreographer Pina Bausch’s Rite from 1975 that kept the original movement and stage floor covered with dirt but was performed by dancers from 14 African countries who had little background in ballet. (That version toured California in February 2024.)
“The other,” says Farooq Chaudhry, a creative producer with Sadler’s Wells, “was again one of those transformative ambitions for Yang, using a well-known piece of music and giving a Chinese perspective on the narrative. I think it’s important for art not to be fossilized and untouchable, so I was excited that she took this on. She was terrified of it initially because of so many great versions of it done by so many great artists. But nonetheless, she embraced it.” In addition to Sadler’s Wells, the half dozen co-producers of Yang’s Rite include the Edinburgh International Festival and Stanford Live.
Yang was born in Yunnan in southwest China and became a well-known star after she won a national award for her solo dance The Spirit of the Peacock in 1986. She is of Bai ethnicity, and much of her work incorporates elements from the various minority groups in China (of which there are 56 officially recognized). She speaks through a translator, Nathan Wang, who is her manager and executive producer.
Yang’s Rite is “very different from all the other productions in the world,” she explains, “because instead of being sacrificed, [the character of the Chosen One is] offering herself to the sacrifice for the benefit of her community. The first intent is to enact the seven colors of goddesses in Buddhism. Each color is a representation of a spirit. There’s a lot of information in the show, not just simple dance and music. Philosophy and cultural beliefs are [also] involved.”
For her production, Yang decided to augment Stravinsky’s score with new work from renowned Shanghai composer He Xuntian, whose contributions have “an oriental mystic style that is compatible” with the original, she says. “And this [new] music also has contrast to the Rite of Spring music, which is a very symphonic orchestra style. I don’t want to use the word ‘abrasive,’ but it’s not melodic. There is a feeling of mystery as well as a sustaining feeling to the [new] music. I’m looking for some sort of meeting of the minds of the two different composers. A lot of dancers in China use [He’s] music for dance, especially for contemporary dance.”
In charge of scenic and costume design is Tim Yip, who won the 2000 Academy Award for Best Art Direction for his work on the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yip also did the production design for San Francisco Opera’s Dream of the Red Chamber and has worked with New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
And he’s collaborated with Yang before. “The first thing I was thinking of,” he relates,” was how Yang Liping developed this [Rite]. She has a really strong taste that is based in Eastern aesthetics. It’s something like a Tibetan inspiration [for this production]. She’s putting the works of the Buddha onstage. There are many pusas, which are something like middle spirits [on the path to enlightenment]. They still stay on the earth, but they have a different spiritual power.
“I was thinking [of] symbolic things. So I built a big golden ball, which is like a reflection of heaven. I had to make a style that [wasn’t] human. You [will] see the makeup, the big eyes, and all these patterns on the [dancers’] bodies. I had to build up all this like a half-ghost, half-human face.”
Words can hardly convey the intense brilliance of the visual effects and the fluid movement of the dancers, so you will just have to see the production for yourself.
