Fragrance

Tonight, my school's Performing Art Center (PAC) hosted Fragrance - an evening of traditional Chinese Dance by the Shanghai Dance Company. The production ran earlier in the year at the Shanghai Grand Theatre. The PAC puts on events like these in order to allow the school community to experience the local performing arts traditions that occur beyond the school gates. It also allows the American school to promote the culture and traditions of China, our host country. (Our school is non-proprietary and sponsored by the American Consulate, so essentially the school is a guest in China.)

Summarized excerpt from the playbill:
The piece takes it name from a translation of a classic Chinese poem written by Song Dynasty master poets Song DongPo and LiQing Zhao. Like the poem, the dances exemplify the rich history, refined style and diverse content that compromise the cultures of China whether it is traditional dance from Mongolia, the Korean and Tajike minority tribes or the Tang Dynasty.

The performance lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes and consisted of 11 different routines, most were traditional Chinese, but a few pieces were much more modern, but still had distinct Chinese charachteristics. Of course, since it was a live-stage performance pictures weren't allowed and my words could not begin to do the pieces justice. I think this has been the the best Chinese performance I have seen here.