Contemporary Dance - What Can I Hold You With Oct. 29-30 19:30 Venue Shanghai International Dance Center Experimental Theater
In the year 1934, the Spanish-speaking writer Jorges Luis Borges penned two untitled English poems. He perhaps never had imagined that one poem would one day turn out to be one of his most widely-read pieces. The poem was later titled What can I hold you with? by readers. The namesake modern dance choreography is an homage to the Borges poem. Choreography, like poem, opens up room for interpretation by leaving certain things unsaid. Obsessed with the unconventional words used by Borges, the choreographer made textual, contextual and intertextual explorations between the lines and created this performance, which is a collage of five standalone sections, each exists in its own imaginative world: a world of memories, a world about the winding of time, or a world based on a ridiculous illusion. Using the language of dance to interpret the poetic words, What can I hold you with is conceived as a collection of short stories told in the form of contemporary dance. What can I hold you with? Like Borges answered in his poem, "I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved somehow - the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities."
Cui Jian
Postgraduate student of Shanghai Theatre Academy. Choreographer, musical choreographer and theater body design and direction. Participation in dance works: Salome, Between, Dream of Zen, The Name of the Rose, etc. Invited to participate in various art festivals which include the Algerian International Contemporary Dance Art Festival, Twelve Days of Chinese Dance at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing New Dance International Art Festival, Beijing Youth Drama Festival, Beijing International Design Week. Mandarin version of musical The Lion King as dance captain and Swing. Participation in musical Beauty and the Beast, A Gentleman's Guide of Love and Murder. Art West Bund's The Sound of Musical as dance director. Immersive theater The Message, Dance poems The Soul of Water as choreographer. Major works: Hide and Seek, Celebrating the Meaninglessness, The Fifth Day.
Tang Yupei
Choreographer and Dancer, Executive Art Director of the Beijing 9 Contemporary Dance Theater. As a choreographer, Tang had the privilege to cooperate with many talented artists both at home and abroad, including Jorge Crecie, Risima Risimkin, Eyal Dadon, Milan Kozáne, Zhang Yimou and Chao Ke, etc. Also, Tang was invited to participate in various art festivals around the world, which include the Dutch International Dance Art Festival, 7th Algerian International Contemporary Dance Art Festival, 16th Skopje Dance Art Festival, EXODOS Art Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Goyang Karawang Art Festival, Tel Aviv Dance Festival in Israel, Twelve Days of Chinese Dance at the National Centre for the Performing Arts; Beijing New Dance International Art Festival. The work of Inception won the official selection award of 92Y Mobile Dance Film Festival in 2021, R.E.M. won the grand prize of EXODOS Art Festival in Ljubljana. Major works: Freezed Frame, Fleet of Time, Insider, The Fifth Day.
