National Ballet of China

The National Ballet of China (NBC), known in China as the Central Ballet Troupe was founded on 31 December 1959. It is the mainland Chinese national ballet troupe.

The ballet company works from the Tianqiao Theater, this was specifically built for NBC in 1959, and it was renovated in 2001. This theater is one of a handful of such theaters in China that specialize in ballet and opera performances.

History

In 1954, the first ballet school in China, Beijing Dance School, was established, and in the following years ballets such as Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet were performed. Later in 1959 the National Ballet of China was founded as the Experimental Ballet Company of the Beijing Dance School. Two persons made their mark on both the school and the company - Dai Ailian who was the principal of the school and one of the ballet company directors, and Pyotr Gusev who instituted the Russian training system that formed the technical foundation for the company.

During the Cultural Revolution, the company came under the control of Madame Mao and Dai Ailian was sidelined. In this period, Revolutionary Model dramas came to the fore, and the repertory of the company was eventually reduced to two sanctioned ballets - The Red Detachment of Women and The White Haired Girl. After the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976, Ailian returned as director until 1980 and then continued as artistic adviser. The ballet company began to reform and change direction with the classical Western ballets resurrected, and it also broadened its range to include more modern ballets from around the world. In 1994, Zhao Ruheng (赵汝蘅), who had been a company dancer since 1959, took over as its artistic director. In 2009, Feng Ying was appointed artistic director of the company.

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China

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces; five autonomous regions; four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing); two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau); and claims sovereignty over Taiwan.

Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world's second-largest country by land area, and either the third or fourth-largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement. China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas.

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See also

The Peony Pavilion

The Peony Pavilion (Chinese: 牡丹亭; pinyin: Mǔdān tíng; Wade–Giles: Mu-tan t'ing) is a play written by Tang Xianzu in the Ming Dynasty and first performed in 1598 at the Pavilion of Prince Teng. One of Tang's "Four Dreams", it has traditionally been performed as a Kunqu (崑曲/昆曲) opera, but Chuan (川) and Gan (贛/赣) opera versions also exist. It is the most popular play of the Ming Dynasty, and is the primary showcase of the guimendan (閨門旦/闺门旦) role type. All Kun theatre troupes include it in their repertoire. Recent adaptations have sought to inject new life into one of China's best-loved classical operas, though such efforts have met with opposition from the Kun opera traditionalists.

Plot

The performance tradition has focused on the love story between Du Liniang (杜麗娘/杜丽娘) and Liu Mengmei (柳夢梅/柳梦梅), but its original text also contains subplots pertaining to the falling Song Dynasty's defense against the aggression of the Jin Dynasty.

It is the last days of the Southern Song Dynasty. On a fine Spring day, a maid persuades Du Liniang, the sixteen-year-old daughter of an important official, Du Bao, to take a walk in the garden, where she falls asleep. In Du Liniang's dream she encounters a young scholar, identified later in the play as Liu Mengmei, whom in real life she has never met. Liu's bold advances starts off a flaming romance between the two and it flourishes rapidly. Du Liniang's dream is interrupted by a flower petal falling on her, according to her soliloquy recounting the incident in a later act: (Reflection on the lost dream). Du Liniang, however, becomes preoccupied with her dream affair and her lovesickness quickly consumes her. Unable to recover from her fixation, Du Liniang wastes away and dies.