After its astounding success in New York, Shen Wei Dance Arts now makes its first visit to the UK. A founder member of China’s first modern dance company, Shen Wei produces startling and absorbing pieces, effortlessly combining his passion for dance with his skills as a filmmaker, painter and calligrapher.
Rite of Spring is performed on a vast abstract water-colour floor painting by Shen Wei. The dancers surge, twist and turn, changing course on a knife edge as the two-piano version of Stravinsky’s greatest score propels them on, saturating the work like paint on a canvas.
In Folding, Shen Wei links the act of folding paper to the folding of bodies, as mysterious figures with elongated heads and draped in rich red and black robes traverse the stage to the sounds of Buddhist chanting and the haunting melodies of John Taverner. |
