Guangzhou Modern Dance Festival

The Guangzhou Modern Dance Festival daily programme was broad and varied: studio performances by young dancers that showed such skill and confidence, endearingly naïve in content and some a bit sickly sweet BUT most with an individuality and confidence that I rarely see in the UK Youth Dance Scene. Afternoon Springboard performances by emerging artists from what I could interpret shared a common thread and explored the relationship each artist has with China. They were somewhat mixed in quality.

At the other end of the scale the BIG professional performances in main house theatres have been disappointing, extremely body beautiful, monotonously technically brilliant and soul-less. What's going on with the choreographers? In the post show discussion a director was asked why he had placed a tea party (complete with table and tea service) in the middle of the piece described as 'a poem about mother nature' (complete with heavy metal tree), his answer was that he just felt like it because one day he had seen the dancers having tea together and thought it was beautiful!

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Meanwhile the inclusive workshop muddled on with energy and enthusiasm from all involved, After three sessions we said our goodbyes and made plans for the teachers and local artists to meet together again soon for some mutual support and ideas sharing. There is a real eagerness to develop the work so I hope this is a beginning for us all.

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