The Inside Scoop

August 16, 2008
I spent today with Professor Rou Wen and her master's student Li from the Beijing Dance Academy. They both speak fair english, but for extra assistance to expedite the interviewing process Li brought her boyfriend Hu to translate. We toured the BDA and I peeped in on some rehearsals. 7 floors of studio space! At the entrance of the BDA is an inscription that translates "cradle of the dancer", meaning that this is where dancer's are trained and grow from, like a child grows up from the cradle. The cradle is the nurturing place where children start out and the BDA is comparable in its purpose for nurturing dancers.
Li and Hu took me around to dance shops around the dance academy and loaded me up with books and DVDs of classical and contemporary Chinese dance. After that we met up with Rou Wen at a cafe and proceeded with the interview. Rou and Li had graciously prepared from the questions I sent them. To start out, they took me through the whole performance of the opening ceremonies and outlined the meanings and significance of each section and emphasized the details on the dances. It was incredible! I learned so much! After a couple of hours we broke for lunch and continued to chat. Rou Wen is an exercise physiologist that is interested in human movement. She is working on starting a dance conditioning and kinesiology course at the BDA, so she asked me about dance in the US and how these particular courses are structured and taught. China is moving toward emphasizing dance science more in dance training. Instead of just being able to develop flawless technique, the dancers will be able to know how the movement is happening on a scientific level. Really cool! It was neat to be able to exchange information and experience. These people were so generous with their time and resources that I was grateful that I could reciprocate something of value to them.

Tonight I had a ticket to the second annual dance festival. Dance companies from the USA and China performed on the same concert. Odyssey Dance Theatre performed as well as another American Modern Dance company from Colorado with China's Ballet company etc. Cool idea, but not the best concert. I was so bored. During Intermission I went next door to McDonald's and got ice cream and fries before deciding that I couldn't handle the rest of the concert.