Beijing’s urban sprawl inspires dance about the human cost of progress
Beijing's relentless urban sprawl inspires adance piece about the human cost of economic progress, writes Xu Donghuan
Moroccan-Flemish choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui 's latest work, Genesis, is inspired by the sprawling and chaotic megacity that is Beijing today.
"When I see China growing and it's always growing, I feel like this is crazy," says the Antwerp-based Cherkaoui who has been flying in and out of the Chinese capital for this project since 2012. "There are so many people in Beijing and the cars and the pollution. All of this made me think. Good things happen because we grow; bad things also happen because we grow. Genesis is about the good and the bad in [development]."
Chinese dancers are fantastic. They have such an incredible discipline
The 90-minute performance, set inside what looks like a research laboratory, is also the result of a meeting he had with award-winning dancer Wang Yabin, who is also the producer of the show.
Genesis opens at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing on Thursday before moving to Guangzhou and Shanghai.
Cherkaoui says the collaboration has changed the way they looked at their own artistic practice. Wang, for example, was intrigued by Cherkaoui's more natural approach when she saw one of his shows in Japan in 2009.
"I change her and she changes me. We develop and grow … it's influence and exchange," says the 37-year-old choreographer, who has collaborated with an array of international artists, including Akram Khan, a British dancer of Bangladeshi descent, in the dance duet Zero Degrees, which won the Laurence Olivier award in 2006 for best new dance production.