Chinese Dancers, with Help from Pink Floyd, Explore Anxieties of Youth on Feb. 1
January 12, 2005
Beijing Modern Dance Company presents Rear Light, an evening-length dance set to the music of Pink Floyd’s The Wall album, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 1, in Eisenhower Auditorium on the Penn State University Park campus.
Tickets for the Center for the Performing Arts presentation are on sale now at $27 for an adult; $10 for a full-time University Park student; and $17 for a person 18 and younger. For tickets and information, log on to www.cpa.psu.edu or phone 863-0255. Outside the local calling area, dial 1-800-ARTS-TIX. Tickets are also available at Eisenhower Auditorium, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays; Penn State Tickets Downtown in the lobby of State College’s Penn State Downtown Theatre Center, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday; HUB-Robeson Center Information Desk, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays; and Bryce Jordan Center, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
The Chinese company, formed a decade ago, attracts international attention by integrating Chinese culture with influences from abroad. Created as an independent troupe under the leadership of the Beijing Cultural Bureau, the company has recruited many of the most talented modern dancers in China.
“Rear Light is meant to reflect the younger generation of China today, their fight to be free from tradition and their search for new challenges,” says Artistic Director Willy Tsao.
Every young adult can relate to the struggle to find him/herself, the search for a role in society and the desire to achieve. “This kind of struggle happens everywhere,” Tsao observes, “but in watching Rear Light, we can’t help but think it is especially significant in China just now.”
Rear Light does not, however, speak only to the young. “I feel this piece is successful largely because it moves beyond being created with a specific audience in mind, to address the more universal issues of societal alienation and personal breakthrough,” he says.
The 12 company members are innovators looking for new means to express themselves. “By choosing modern dance as their career, these dancers have given up the security which comes with a place in a government-supported traditional or ethnic dance troupe,” Tsao says.
The company has gained rapid success at home and abroad–already touring extensively in China plus visits to Germany, Korea, Canada, France, Singapore and now the United States.
Rear Light takes the audience on a journey of self-discovery, a journey away from the source of light. “The further you go, the darker it gets,” Tsao insists. “Once you arrive at the heart of the darkness, then you see the light.”
Richard Robert Brown sponsors the performance. Radio station 93.7 The Bus is the media sponsor. Artistic Viewpoints, sponsored by the Center for the Performing Arts Community Advisory Council, provides insight from an artist perspective and is offered free to interested ticket holders in the Eisenhower Auditorium Conference Room one hour before the performance.
Contact: Laura Sullivan, 814-863-6379