Dancer taking show around globe
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A dancer, actress, choreographer and veteran producer of her own contemporary dance show at age 29, Wang Yabin travels from big stage to silver screen with ease and grace.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Wang is bringing her latest production, the fifth season show of Yabin & Her Friends, entitled “Genesis,” to Shanghai Oriental Art Center. It is the last stop in China for the production before in debuts in Europe next year. The show premiered at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on November 14.
The tour will include Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and other countries from earlier next year through 2015.
The choreography of this contemporary dance production is a collaboration between Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui of Belgium and Wang.
“He (Cherkaoui) has a reputation internationally, and our studio has commissioned him to create a whole new dance production,” Wang said. “It’s been three years since we got in touch with the choreographer about ‘Genesis’ until we actually sat down to make it happen.”
The show focuses on two questions about life: birth (Where do people come from?) and growth (Where will people go?).
The two Beijing performances were sold out. After five years of hard work, the gala show produced by Wang’s own company in Beijing, Yabin Studio, has achieved both artistic and commercial success.
Wang was trained in classical Chinese dance. She is a superstar on the Chinese stage with her signature program “Fan Dance and Chinese Paintings” (Shanwu Danqing, 扇舞丹青). She danced five times between 2003 and 2010 in the Spring Festival Gala, an annual TV show most Chinese families gather to watch on the eve of Chinese New Year.
Born in Tianjin, Wang started dancing at age six and was admitted to the renowned Beijing Dance Academy when she was nine. She also finished her college education at the academy. Wang has won numerous awards as a classical dancer in China and also performed overseas.
It was director Zhang Yimo’s Oscar-nominated film “House of Flying Daggers” (2003) that put Wang in the spotlight — she choreographed and performed a solo dance as the leading actress Zhang Ziyi’s stand-in. Wang swung long silk sleeves to beat the drums, the choreography was a unique combination of dance and martial arts showing grace and strength.
Wang also sometimes works in television — she starred in the renowned comedian Zhao Benshan’s series “Countryside Love Story” (乡村爱情) in which she portrayed the leading role Wang Xiaomeng, becoming known to an even wider Chinese audience.
Still, she considers dancing as her most important profession, something she will never tire of.
“I’ve played in seven TV series and two films, but in my opinion I never left dancing,” she said.
Wang says acting has helped her to create new dance works, as well as teaching her more about performing.
“I think on the contrary, that helped me when dancing on the stage, because while shooting films you can experience what different characters are going through, about their fate and emotions. Sometimes it’s similar to stage performances,” she said.
In order to polish her acting, Wang also finished a three-year graduate program at Beijing Film Academy.
“I think being in the arts industry, even if you are just maintaining your present form, you are already behind,” she said.
The production model of Yabin & Her Friends is popular abroad — famous dancers invite others to join in a gala show that’s ongoing and often tours. Introducing this idea to China was not easy, said Wang, but the studio and her team managed to make it a successful brand after five years.
“In 2009, when we started to produce the first season of Yabin & Her Friends, we didn’t know how far we would come. We wanted our stage to be a platform for excellent dancers and choreographers to show to the audience the real beauty of dance,” Wang said. “At the same time, we also wanted it to be more international, and working with elites from Europe and North America.”
Wang said that in the past five years, as they have pushed the development of dance in China forward, artists have grown and they have continued to see progress.
“There were hard times, of course, but this pure pursuit of art is worth it to me to keep up,” she said.
Speaking of the transition from being a dancer to producer, Wang said she has met the challenges she expected, such as dealing with a budget.
“Though I’m a producer, I always think of our being devoted fully to the creation of art, regardless of the cost,” she said. “We can rehearse from 9am to 7pm all day with only a 15-minute break — this is not something everybody can do.”
Having so many associate her with her work on television or in films is also a challenge for Wang because they don’t know about her dancing.
Yabin & Her Friends is a contemporary production, but Wang said being a classical dancer has not caused any problems for Wang, she said. In previous seasons, they have tried to incorporate traditional Chinese dance.
“I think classical Chinese dance has many things we can learn from — it’s beautiful and modest,” she said. “Showing it in a modern setting will attract more young fans and it helps to promote classical dance.”
Wang thinks of herself as a dancer not restricted to genres like contemporary or classical.
“The art of dancing is developing fast, and I as a person born in the 1980s would like to contribute to the development of Chinese dancing,” Wang said. “It’s something I love and am willing to do, so more people will know and be touched by dancing.”
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