Song Dynasty poet is star of new stage production

Dancer, choreographer, painter and visual artist Shen Wei often looks to the past for inspiration.

One of his epic productions, Scroll Painting, which was performed as part of the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, was viewed by billions of people around the world. In the breathtaking piece, dancers performed against the backdrop of a constantly changing giant LED scroll displaying Chinese ink paintings. Shen pushed the presentation to new boundaries with his modern choreography, which seemed to replace the brush with the human body, presenting a new vision of an old art form.

His latest offering, a contemporary dance production called Dongpo: Life in Poems, turns to Chinese traditional culture and history once again, this time to focus on Su Dongpo, a Song Dynasty (960-1279) poet, whose work is still celebrated in China today.

Shen, who lives between New York and Paris, was approached by the China Oriental Performing Arts Group to participate in the production in November 2021, while he was working in his studio in Paris.

For months, he researched Su, reading his poems and learning about the man, who was a master of many classical literary and artistic forms, including poetry and essays, as well as calligraphy and painting.

"History is a good source of ideas, and leaves much room for the imagination," Shen said in Beijing, the day after the show was held in the capital between Dec 1 and 3.

He adds that he was hesitant to get involved at first because Su Dongpo is a Chinese cultural icon.

"As I learned about his private and political life, I was intrigued by the man and his work," says Shen, who put all his other projects aside and devoted himself to the production for close to two years.

"I always enjoy the process of preparing for a new project. I've never devoted so much time and energy to one as I have with Dongpo: Life in Poems. It even appeared in my dreams," he says.

Shen approached Su less as a character from history and more for what he represents in a much broader cultural context, and Shen wore multiple hats, serving as the show's director, choreographer, scriptwriter, costume designer, visual artistic director and set designer.

Also known as Su Shi, Su Dongpo was born in Meishan in Sichuan province. At a young age, he performed brilliantly in the imperial examinations and began a long and distinguished career as an official in various governmental positions, where he experienced a series of political setbacks, including appointments to minor posts in distant locations.

Despite such hardships, Su remained optimistic in his private and political life. That optimism can also be seen in his poems, many of which vividly describe his experiences.

Shen selected 15 of Su's poems after reading around 2,000 of them, and these became the base of the six acts into which the production is divided, each of which touches on a different aspect of the poet's life, including his painful parting with his beloved wife. Famous lines were displayed onstage in calligraphic form.

Working with Chen Qigang, Shen combined pieces by the composer, including Enchantements Oublies, Itineraire d'une Illusion and Jiang Tcheng Tse, with guqin (Chinese zither) pieces performed by guqin soloist Zhao Xiaoxia.

Other than poems, Shen made use of Su's ink paintings, Xiaoxiang Bamboo and Stone Picture, as well as his own paintings, Untitled No 8, No 6 and No 11, in creating the stage set.

"The training Shen gave the dancers was unique because he has his own system. He didn't tell us to perform with our bodies, but with our hearts," says Su Peng, one of the lead dancers. "Like the production itself, which was a new and mind-opening visual and sound experience, the process of working with Shen was also very different and rewarding."

Dongpo: Life in Poems, premiered in Shanghai this July, was performed in Chengdu, Sichuan province, last weekend, and will be performed in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, on Friday and Saturday.

Feedback has been varied. Some theatergoers have been wowed by the production, saying that they had never seen anything like it before, while others have said that the production was challenging for them to understand.

"I was prepared for the different reactions. I hope that people will keep an open mind about art. It's like listening to a bird singing or smelling the fragrance of flowers, a very personal experience," Shen says.

"What I hope people gain from my work is a glimpse of the beauty of Chinese culture, and to be able to engage in a sense of the unknown. Researching Su Dongpo and the Song Dynasty was like a process of decoding the past. I want the audience to do the same when they watch the production, and decode the information I put in it about Su."

Over the course of his decadeslong career, Shen has made a name on the international dance scene for his lyrical, visually alluring contemporary productions infused with Eastern and Western sensibilities.

His passion for Chinese history and culture dates back to childhood. Born in Hunan province in 1968 to Chinese opera professionals, he trained from a young age in the rigorous practice of Chinese opera, ink painting and calligraphy, and was a performer with a Hunan art troupe between 1984 and 1989.

In 1989, he began to study contemporary dance in the American Dance Festival program at the Guangdong Dance Academy. In 1992, he became a founding member of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company, the country's first contemporary dance company.

In 1994, he won first prize for choreography and performance at a national modern dance competition, and then moved to New York on a scholarship from the Nikolais/Louis Dance Theater Lab.

In the 1990s, Shen turned his attention to filmmaking, while continuing to pursue dance theory, choreography and painting, and, in 2000, founded his own company, New York-based Shen Wei Dance Arts.

Last year, he was honored with an American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement.

The China Oriental Performing Arts Group plans to stage Dongpo: Life in Poems at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC next March. Dancers from Shen Wei Dance Arts will also participate.

"We might not always understand different cultures, but we can appreciate performance, and we can appreciate art. That's the beauty of movement. And that's the beauty of dance," he says.