Last summer, award-winning choreographer Patrick de Bana oversaw the Shanghai Ballet Company’s UK debut. Their wildly imaginative re-imagination of Charlotte Brontë’s Victorian classic Jane Eyre was a rousing critical and commercial success. With Baiser Vole, the German based dancer is returning the favor, bringing the world’s preeminent stars to Shanghai Grand Theatre on August 9.
“I was invited to bring nice people and give the audience a wonderful time,” de Bana explains. “What did I do? I just opened my contact book and started calling friends from England to Holland, Moscow to Vienna and Paris to Georgia in the States.”
It’s a star-studded affair with performances by Stuttgart Ballet principal dancers Friedemann Vogel and Maria Eichwald, Vienna State Ballet soloist Ketevan Papava, Dutch National Ballet principal Anna Tsygankova, Royal Ballet principal Matthew Golding and Shanghai Ballet standouts Fan Xiaofeng and Wu Husheng.
Although many of the dancers will be performing for Shanghai audiences for the first time, de Bana says it wasn’t hard to convince them to participate.
“I made sure they were excited because I only told them good things about Shanghai in order to get them to say yes,” he says cheekily, before insisting that, “I am telling the truth.”
A self-described “child of the world,” the Nigerian-German has forged strong relationships with artists throughout the globe. He’s worked with revered Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura, choreographing and performing in Iberia and Fados.
Since leaving the Compania Nacional de Danza of Spain to form the Nafas Dance Company in 2003, de Bana’s performed everywhere from Australia to Canada, while collaborating with groups like the Tokyo Ballet and the Istanbul State Ballet.
Last year’s Jane Eyre was a start of a beautiful relationship between the dancer and Shanghai. The show boldly pushed the character of Bertha Mason to the forefront, the mad woman who spends most of her time locked in the attic, alongside her despairing husband Edward Rochester and the titular character he is entranced with.
He cites the city’s unique sense of combining the past and present as an inspiration. However, Baiser Vole’s casting of Paris Opera Ballet legends Isabelle Guérin and Manuel Legris, who are both in their 50s, is driven by observations on how Mainland dancers feel constrained by age.
“The reason I invited them is because they are both major in this career and have matured with age,” he explains. “I met an excellent China Central Ballet principal who was considering stopping dancing for, he believed, reaching 28 years old meant he got old. I was shocked. I mean, what will he feel when gets to 70 years old?”
It later dawned on him that it is even common for Chinese ballerinas to quit dancing after getting married, not to mention having babies.
“Dancers!” he cries with a wry smile. “You worked very hard in school. It has been a very difficult time. Don’t stop so early! Girls, being a mother only betters you as a woman.”
The legendary duo will perform two pieces including the world premiere of ‘The Farewell Waltz.’ It’s one of two pieces that will make its international debut. The other features de Bana performing alongside Russian prima ballerina and two-time Golden Mask winner Svetlana Zakharova.
“Dancing with Zakharova is like walking into the Forbidden City and the last Empress of China has invited you to dance,” he gushes of the Bolshoi Ballet dancer who was given the title of an Honored Artist of Russia in 2005. “It’s like the impossible is coming true.”
Their collaboration, ‘Digital Love,’ will close the show, and de Bana says it’s inspired by the recent tragedy of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
“This is very sad. For all those desperate families, the only thing they could rely on is the beeping sound from the black box,” he notes. “We attempt to interpret love in distance with the digital device as the only bridge.”
// August 9, 7.15pm, RMB180-680. Shanghai Grand Theatre, 300 Renmin Dadao, by Huangpi Bei Lu 人民大道300号, 近黄陂北路 (400 610 3721, en.damai.cn)
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