Jing Ping Mei is the most notorious novel in Chinese literature. Also known as The Golden Lotus, it was banned for centuries because of explicit sexual content. Nonetheless, its reputation and literary merit ensured that it was valued by generations of literati, eventually to become established in the Chinese literary canon. Internationally acclaimed ballet choreographer of The Peony Pavilion and Raise the Red Lantern, Wang Yuanyuan takes on this tale of debauchery and excess, and liberates its three female protagonists through dance: Pan‘s quest for sexual empowerment, Li‘s longing for everlasting love and Pang‘s struggle for social independence. The Beijing Dance Theater is known as the first Chinese company to fuse ballet and modern dance. So expectation is high as Wang and her sought-after creative team, headed by Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip and Music Director of the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony Chen Qigang, lead China‘s most daring dancers in recreating the house of merchant Ximen Qing and its web of household politics spun by wives, concubines and servants.

Based on Harold Brighouse’s stage play of the same name, Hobson’s Choice is an uplifting ballet which tells the tale of Will Mossop, a humble shoe maker whose talent could take him far – if only someone would push him firmly in the right direction. Maggie Hobson is the girl for the job, but she must outmanoeuvre her equally stubborn father.2011 Hong Kong Arts Festival http://www.hk.artsfestival.org Birmingham Royal Ballet‘s Artistic Director David Bintley translates the affectionate rags-to-riches comedy into a series of memorable dances, each with its own individual charm and character. With Bintley’s comic choreography and Paul Reade’s sparkling score, Hobson’s Choice offers something special for all the family and guarantees to ―send you out with a sigh of happiness‖ (The Stage).

The Asia Pacific Dance Platform (APDP) celebrates the creativity and dynamism of contemporary dance in the Asia Pacific region encouraging an appreciation of current dance trends in the region and communication within practitioners among Workshops, Dialogues and Performances. This year, APDP presents an exhilarating series of new solo works by choreographers from Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and Hong Kong. Do not miss the opportunity to explore and experience the latest in contemporary dance in the region.

The Asia Pacific Dance Platform (APDP) celebrates the creativity and dynamism of contemporary dance in the Asia Pacific region encouraging an appreciation of current dance trends in the region and communication within practitioners among Workshops, Dialogues and Performances. This year, APDP presents an exhilarating series of new solo works by choreographers from Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and Hong Kong. Do not miss the opportunity to explore and experience the latest in contemporary dance in the region.

Serenade
Serenade is a milestone in the history of dance. It is the first original ballet Balanchine created in America and is one of the signature works of New York City Ballet’s repertory. Balanchine began the ballet as a lesson in stage technique and worked unexpected rehearsal events into the choreography. A student’s fall or late arrival to rehearsal became part of the ballet. After its initial presentation, Serenade was reworked several times. In its present form there are four movements — Sonatina, Waltz, Russian Dance, and Elegy. The last two movements reverse the order of Tchaikovsky’s score, ending the ballet on a note of sadness. Balanchine had a special affinity for Tschaikovsky. “In everything that I did to Tschaikovsky’s music,” he told an interviewer, “I sensed his help. It wasn’t real conversation. But when I was working and saw that something was coming of it, I felt that it was Tschaikovsky who had helped me.”

Divertimento No 15
When asked to present a work at the Mozart Festival held at the American Shakespeare Theater in Stratford, Connecticut, in 1956, Balanchine originally planned to revive Caracole, an earlier work set to Mozart’s Divertimento No 15. Instead, he created a new ballet that used many steps from the old work, and he named the new ballet after the music, which he considered the finest divertimento ever written. The divertimento genre reached its zenith amid the parties and informal entertainments of 18th-century aristocratic life. Divertimentos did not have a fixed structure; the number of movements could vary from one to twelve, and they could be scored for one instrument or a chamber orchestra. Divertimento No 15 is choreographed for eight principal dancers, five women and three men, with an ensemble of eight women. The ballet omits the second minuet and the andante from the sixth movement; a new cadenza for violin and viola by John Colman was added in the late 1960s.

Duo Concertant
Stravinsky dedicated Duo Concertant to Samuel Dushkin, a well-known violinist he met in 1931. The composer premiered the work with Dushkin in Berlin in 1932, and the pair gave recitals together across Europe for the next several years. Balanchine first heard the piece performed by Stravinsky and Dushkin soon after it was composed, but not until years later, when he was planning the 1972 Stravinsky Festival, did he decide to choreograph it. The performance of the musicians on stage is integral to the conception of the ballet. Standing at the piano with the musicians, the dancers listen to the first movement. During the next three movements they dance, mirroring the music and each other, and pause several times to rejoin the musicians and listen. In the final movement, the stage is darkened and the dancers perform within individual circles of light.

Symphony in Three Movements
For New York City Ballet’s 1972 Stravinsky Festival, Balanchine choreographed several notable masterpieces, including the majestic Symphony in Three Movements. Stravinsky had suggested the music as a ballet when the choreographer visited the composer in Hollywood during World War II. Despite its 21 minute length, the piece evokes a fuller symphonic breadth with two instruments, the harp and piano, providing the dominant contrasts. “Each instrument has a large obbligato role in a movement to itself, and only at the turning-point fugue…do the two play together and unaccompanied,” said Stravinsky. The signature Stravinsky propulsive rhythm is mirrored by the angular, athletic choreography for soloists and large ensemble, although the second andante movement, originally composed for an apparition scene in the movie Song of Bernadette, is reserved for a meditative pas de deux. One of Balanchine’s “leotard” ballets, the work requires no scenic or narrative distractions from the complexity of the choreography.

Dances at a Gathering
Dances at a Gathering, which premiered in 1969, heralded Jerome Robbins’ return to New York City Ballet after a 13-year absence. Inspired by Chopin’s piano music, Robbins quickly began choreographing in the rehearsal studio. When he showed 25 minutes of choreography to Balanchine, he said, “Make more, make it like peanuts, keep eating” pretending to pop peanuts into his mouth. The work eventually expanded to an hour in length with a cast of ten dancers. Chopin’s mazurkas, waltzes, and études, groundbreaking at the time of their composition, are rooted in the Slavic character of his Polish homeland, yet still convey the elegance of Paris, where they were created. Robbins ultimately used 18 of Chopin’s piano pieces, creating dances for various duets, solos, and larger groupings. “The ballet stays and exists in the time of the music and its work,” wrote Robbins. “Nothing is out of it, I believe; all gestures and moods, steps, etc. are part of the fabric of the music’s time and its meaning to me.”

West Side Story Suite
West Side Story took Broadway by storm in 1957, when it ushered in a new era in musical theatre. Jerome Robbins had the idea to update Romeo and Juliet, setting it in modern-day New York, and he engaged composer Leonard Bernstein, playwright Arthur Laurents, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim as collaborators. The musical played for two years on Broadway, then toured the US and ran for nearly three years in London, and has since been staged in cities around the world. The movie followed in 1961, winning 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (for co-directors Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins), as well as a special award presented to Robbins for his choreography. In 1989, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway opened at the Imperial Theater in New York. Included in the retrospective of Robbins’ musical theatre work was a suite of dances from West Side Story, which the choreographer re-staged at New York City Ballet in 1995.

This content is only available in Chinese

This content is only available in Chinese

The Manchus enter the Central Plains and general Lee Shing-tung lays siege to the resistance troops in Guangdong. The heroic fighter Chan Tsi-chong is badly wounded during combat with the invaders and hastens home to ask his concubine Cheung Yuk-kiu to take care of his family. Smitten with Cheung s beauty, Lee forces her to marry him; Cheung, determined to save the Chans, sacrifices herself and agrees to the marriage. Chan is sentenced to be tortured to death. On Lee s birthday, a visiting opera troupe performs the Cantonese opera Chronicle of the Loyal General Ngok Fei. Cheung talks Lee into donning the attire of Ming court officials and admonishes Lee in public. She finally commits suicide assuring her good name would last forever.

In the Jin dynasty, the Prince brothers vie to marry Lau Hung-luen. Lau favours the stately Prince Chan, with whom she consummates her passion and bears a child. Later, Prince Wang, the unsightly brother of Chan, almost manages to delude Lau into marrying him, while Chan is almost fooled into marrying Hung-luen s ugly sister Hung-lin. A remorseful Wang decides to relinquish his love interest to make way for Hung-luen and Chan. As it turns out, Hung-luen is a goddess from heaven. She soon comes to the realisation that the transient love in the human world is incomparable to the everlasting peace in the celestial realm. She then descends from heaven and delivers her son to Chan, bidding farewell to the endless love and hate in the mortal world.