Raise The Red Lantern

Indulging myself with food, friends, cooking, further education and work just wasn’t enough for me. In an artsy-fartsy Melbourne, how could I not dwelve into the international arts scene displayed at The Arts Centre? This time around, brought to you by the National Ballet of China, Zhang Yimou’s movie “Raise The Red Lantern” in 1991 played by Gong Li is brought to stage, in his collaboration with Wang Xinpeng.

The original movie depicted a girl forced to marry into a household of concubines and later jealousy developed between the wives and mistresses. Each time the master spends time with any of them, the red lanterns are brightly lit up.

In this ballet, it depicts a schoolgirl kidnapped and forced to marry into an old lord’s house of a wife and concubine. She becomes the second concubine and had already fallen in love earlier with a Peking Opera singer who performed for the master. She secretly has an affair with him and the first concubine tells on her. The master gets mad, punishes all three of them including the first concubine for “being bitchy” after she inadvertantly lit up her lanterns which drew the master into a rage.

The girl wrapped in the sheets feeling “violated” by her master.

There were 3 dancers for each role, as seen in their booklet. Everyone seemed to have a chance at dancing that role. Maybe it was just so another one can replace the main role or for them to keep things fresh by dancing different roles on the different days 5-9 August 2009 or maybe on tour to other countries. It was not easy to match the dancers to those on the booklet based on their looks (they all seemed so fair and poised nonetheless!).

The most traditional part about the show had to be the actual Chinese opera singing and also musicians. Ballet in this production was not exactly traditional with their mix of extensive facial expressions and flexible movements that seemed like contemporary movements. Lighting was fantastic nonetheless. The part I liked best was simplest. Basically, when the three people were jailed, stripes of lighting were shone onto the floor, as if they were locked in a jail cell and they danced within that space.

At the beginning of the production, the dances seemed fairly simple, with minimal jumps and lots of retirés and courus. My favourite dance had to be the “mahjong” session. They had put together many square tables and each table had 4 players (dancers). They would all “mess up the mahjong tiles” in unison and here’s the best part. At one point, they put together all the tables in one row facing the audiences and it formed a complete set of tiles! Tables = tiles! Imagine that. Okay, this is a real spoiler, huh? That was the end of scene 1. Shadow playing was one of the highlights of this show as well. At one point, they used real paint on the walls to mark “lashings”. Violence and blood.

Here’s a sneak preview of something I found on the internet. I always do my research after a good movie, ballet or theatrical play. It’s always nice to compare my review with others too.

The second scene was more dramatic, of course. With love and jealousy in place, lots of emotions. The female dancers all had a really light ballón and you could see that they were all so skinny and small in size, it seemed that their dance was just effortless. Plus, to dance like that for 2 hours – how amazing is that? With lots of jumps, stretches and all. I guess that’s part of training and dancing all their lives, isn’t it. Come on, it’s China. They live to do arts. They have parents condoning them in this field. Ballet was nothing to them. They had to merge ballet and acrobatic together. That’s what sets them apart from other countries who do ballet.

Not forgetting, Zhang Yimou the director, also directed the opening and closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics 2008. How good do you think the ballet would have been? I wish I could show you all and recorded it, but it would not be special at all to you if I had done so. The imagery of the dancers with their ever so pointed feet and amazing poise are just exclusive in my mind. Their turnout of the feet, my goodness! Amazing!

Source: Picture from the internet. The principal dancer lighting the red lanterns.

Their red curtain reminds me of Her Queen’s Majesty’s Theatre in London. Maybe it just looks common. Every other theatre probably looks like this.

I found someone to indulge in the lovely performance, with me – Pam.

Ballet On The Russes – Ballet Art Exhibition

A gallery displaying ballet art at The Arts Centre just right after the ballet performance. What a great environment!

My Attempt At Ballet

And the thing about living in Melbourne also, is the access to buying real ballet items. Like, these silver pair of ballet flats (normal going-out shoes, not ballet shoes) by Bloch.

Got my stockings / tights from London last year.

Bloch leotard and reversible ballet warming pants.

Not willing to put on pounds and kgs yet!!! And, working hard to maintain that. I rate myself 1/10 if the Chinese ballerinas are 10/10. I realised how bad my dancing is, really! I’m still looking rather unfit. I want muscles!

Through ballet, and other forms of dancing, gym and activities. I need my dose of inspiration now and then.

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