Dancer-choreographer-actress Wang Yabin created a theatrical dance interpretation of “The Moon Opera,” and she and her dance studio Yabin & Her Friends will perform it in Beijing and Shanghai in October.
People can catch “The Moon Opera” at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing’s Xicheng District on Oct. 4-6.
NCPA will be hosting a performance by Yabin & Her Friends for the fifth time.
Li Zhixiang, NCPA’s deputy director, told PR Newswire, “We have a lot of respect for Yabin and other artists she worked with.”
“The Moon Opera” is one of the highlights of the 17th China Shanghai International Arts Festival (Oct. 15-21). It will also be shown at the Malanhua Theater in Shanghai’s Xuhui District on Oct. 19-20.
Wang’s dance drama, which she also produced, is a collaboration of talents outside China.
Japanese Nakano Kimie (costume design), London-based Matt Deely (set design) and Polish Olga Wojciechowska (composer) comprised the team. Wojciechowska worked alongside Chinese composer Guo Sida, reported China Daily.
The opera is a stage adaptation of award-winning writer Bi Feiyu’s 117-page debut novel of the same title published in 2007. It is “set against the dramatic backdrop of the Peking Opera” and narrates the story of how a “desperate woman will embrace an exalted image of herself in an effort to flee earthly concerns,” according to Good Reads, a social cataloging website.
Sylvia Li-chun Lin and Howard Goldblatt translated the novel into English. U.S.-based publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s 2009 hardcover edition of “The Moon Opera” contains 128 pages.
The novel was also translated in French (“L'Opera de la lune”) and German (“Die Mondgottin”).
Tianjin-born Wang founded Yabin Studio, branded as Yabin & Her Friends, in 2009. The Beijing-based dance studio collaborates with Chinese, American and European choreographers.
When she was in Europe for the “Genesis” tour in Nov. 2014, Wang read the novel and watched its TV series version, reported China Daily.
Wang said that Xiao Yanqiu, the novel’s lead character, is “tailored” for her, according to Beijing News. She will play Xiao, whom she describes as “a person who chases and explores how to live one’s life.”
There is now an opportunity to witness how chasing and living one’s life can be interpreted through dance.