“Thunder and Rain,” a new dance drama adapted from Chinese dramatist Cao Yu’s signature play “Thunderstorm,” debuted at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center on Thursday evening.
As the Oriental Art Center’s first self-produced dance production, “Thunder and Rain” has brought together a handful of promising dancers from Beijing, Zhejiang and Shanghai, including multiple national award-winning dancer Shan Chong, and star dancer Zhang Aoyue.
As one of China’s most well-known literary tragedies, “Thunderstorm” has had many stage adaptations since its publication in 1933, but had never before been staged as a dance drama with the full script and characters.
Ti Gong
“Thunder and Rain” is adapted from Cao Yu’s signature play “Thunderstorm.”
Director and choreographer Zhao Xiaogang hopes to “use dance to generate drama,” and allow the audience to discover the contradictions and themes of the drama through the rich emotional lives of the characters.
This creative method has placed high demands on the dancers’ physical expressiveness. In addition to reflecting the mutual entanglement and push-pull of the characters’ relationships, the eight main characters each have a solo dance to highlight their personalities.
Zhao describes the solo dances as similar to “an aria in an opera or a monologue in a play.”
Ti Gong
Each character has a solo dance to highlight the role’s personality.
Unlike traditional dance dramas, dancers rarely use props during performances, making the overall stage style somewhat like a contemporary dance. In terms of stage layout, a huge circular staircase creates a visual montage. There is also a big seesaw on the stage, as if fate is controlling the life of the protagonists.
Given the comparatively large number of main characters and their complicated relationships, it is recommended that the audiences review the story outline of “Thunderstorm” before seeing the performance, so they can more easily follow the characters’ emotions and better understand the dancers’ interpretation of their respective roles.
“Thunder and Rain” will stage five performances at the Oriental Art Center before kicking off a national tour in November. Over 30 performances will be staged in cities including Wuhan, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Kunming, Qianjiang, and Nanchang.
Ti Gong
A huge circular staircase creates a visual montage on stage.
Performance info:
Date: July 26-28, 2pm / 7:15pm
Venue: Shanghai Oriental Art Center 上海东方艺术中心
Address: 425 Dingxiang Road, Pudong New Area 浦东丁香路425号
Tickets: 180-880 yuan