‘Blossoming’ Ballet Brings Back the Old Shanghai

The Sino-France co-produced ballet A Sigh of Love started to rehearse on June 28th, 2006, which will be another national ballet after the creation of White-Haired Girl and The Butterfly Lovers. This ballet is co-funded by Shanghai Grand Theatre Arts Group and Association Francaise d’ Action Artistique (AFAA). After sixteen times of discussion about the project and the play in eight months, four times of revision, the play for A Sigh of Love was finalized in March 2006 and it will be premiered on September 2nd.

Asian Implicit Beauty

The ballet A Sigh of Love is the first Chinese national ballet that is supported by Shanghai Grand Theatre Arts Group and Association Francaise d’ Action Artistique (AFAA). It is also the Shanghai Ballet’s new national ballet after five years of introduction and learning from foreign experiences. A Sigh of Love is set in 1930s-1940s when Shanghai was an ‘isolated island’: a writer loved his neighbor; after a few years, when he came back to find that the person he loved has changed. The story will naturally remind us of Wong Kar-Wei’s movie In the Mood for Love, but the ballet playwright Cao Lu Sheng said, two of them are between being similar and not similar.

The selections of dancers have lasted for eight months. Many young dancers will dance in this ballet. The Artistic Director of Shanghai Ballet Xin Lili said, “This ballet will not only be a name card for Shanghai, but also a cradle for a new generation of dancers.” Young dancers just showed a piece of departure scene from the ballet at yesterday’s press meeting.

The French choreographer Bertrand d’At said: “There is a bit of sadness, a bit of closeness, without the passion of love, only the implicitness of love. This exactly shows the Asian implicit beauty”……

Stage designer Jerome Kaplan said “(costume for) A Sigh of Love are different from costumes for Raise the Red Lantern, cheongsam’s interior and implicit beauty will be emphasized.”…(Oriental Morning Post)

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