With the support of Shanghai Grand Theatre Arts Group and Association
Francaise d’ Action Artistique (AFAA), the Shanghai Ballet
started to rehearse Sino-France co-produced ballet A Sigh of
Love on June 28th, 2006 and the ballet will be premiered on
September 2nd.
Creation is the life blood for performing arts organizations. For
the importing art of ballet, the Shanghai Ballet has always kept
the principal of walking on “introduction” and “creation”.
The Shanghai Ballet has introduced some foreign distinguishing ballet,
and created popular national ballet such as White-haired Girl
and The Butterfly Lovers. The ballet A Sigh of Love
is the Shanghai Ballet’s new national ballet after five years
of introduction and learning from foreign experiences. The creation
of A Sign of Love is funded by Shanghai Grand Theatre Arts
Group Arts Development Fund. The ballet is set in Shanghai during
the 1930s-1940s when Shanghai was an ‘isolated island’.
It combines the characteristics of classic and modern ballet, and
demonstrates artistic attraction of its luxury, sadness, fashion,
romance and reminiscence. It also describes a story between two
couples with the art of ballet and expresses that: “The best
human love experience may just be as short as ‘blossom youth’,
or only a wishful thinking depending on chances.”
There is a bit of sadness, a bit of closeness, without the passion
of love, only the implicitness of love. The furthest distance in
the world is not when I stand in front of you, yet you can't see
my love, but when undoubtedly knowing the love from both, yet cannot
be together…… The ballet will use old Shanghai’s
popular songs such as The Blossom Youth,Shanghai At Night, Song
of Four Seasons etc., combine the styles of modern music and
jazz, and give the music new energy while keeping the style of old
shanghai. It sets its scenery in the 1930s-1940s’ Shi Ku Men,
giving people a sense of being present. At the moment, the overall
stage design has finished and is now in production.
A strong creation team has been formed, showing the cultural communication
and friendship between China and France: professor of Shanghai Theatre
Academy Cao Lu Sheng is the playwright; as recommended by AFAA,
Mr. Bertrand d’At, Director of Ballet de L ‘Opera National
du Rhin, is the choreographer; the stage designer is the renowned
Jerome Kaplan, who also designed costumes for Ballet: Raise
The Red Latten. Since 2002, the Shanghai Ballet has introduced
ballet teachers and performances through the AFAA. This is the first
time that we try to create a new ballet of Chinese story. Hence
it is quite meaningful. In order to make the French artists fully
understand Shanghai’s culture, we have arranged the choreographer
and the stage & costume designer to visit Shanghai Grand Theatre,
Oriental Arts Centre, Shanghai Museum, Duo Lun Cultural Street,
Yu Garden, Che Dun Film Park to understand culture in Shanghai.
We have also collected materials and old Shanghai’s documents.
Wu Si Yuan and Chen Gang are invited to be art consultants for the
ballet, making sure to make a modern Chinese national ballet and
its music, dance and overall aesthetic feeling can demonstrate Shanghai’s
local characteristics.
The creation of this ballet has strictly followed the artistic process
to choose the subject and prepare. A leading team and a work team
for A Sigh of Love were formed on December 8th, 2005 and
have discussed about the copyright, artistic style, stage design
for many times to ensure its artistic quality. After sixteen times
of discussion about the project and the play in eight months, with
advices from many renowned people and artists, four times of revision,
the play for A Sigh of Love was finalized in March 2006.
The Shanghai Ballet has invited a teacher from Shanghai Theatre
Academy to teach dancers ball room dance to show the real old Shanghai
style and help them understand more about the old Shanghai’s
culture before rehearsing. In the meantime, the work team has also
collected posters, movies and music materials with the choreographer
and stage designer, and commissioned a lawyer to ensure the legal
process of copyright and contracts. The copyright of this ballet
now belongs to the Shanghai Ballet.
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