MINORITIES (2017)

Credits

Concept & Choreography : Yang Zhen.
Dancers: Lou Hio Mei (Macao) , Aliya Kerimujiang (Uygur, basic in New York ,USA), Ma Xiaolin (Chinese Korean, Beijing ), Zhuo Lin (Mongolian,Inner Mongolia) , GengZang Cuomao (Tibetan,Qinghai).
Singer : Huang Ping (Hu Nan).
Animation design: Zhang Yongji (Beijing).
Light Design: Flower Hua (Tai Pei).
Music: Yang Zhen.
Photographer: Ray Qi.
Co-producters :  2017 Dance in Munich & 2017 TaiPei Art Festival.

About

Minorities is the third work of the “Revolution Game” series. The choreographer wanted to involve the concept of ethnic minority into thinking about international issues. As for his own experience, he studied at the Minzu University of China, which literally means Ethnic Group University of China. He has lived and observed for four years this environment of ethnic diversity, where “the harmony of different ethnic groups” is advocated. Here, a very substantive concept of “central” ethnic group in formed. Later, he went to some “local” ethnic areas to observe and communicate with local inhabitants, for example those in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hainan and Hunan. After the field work, he came to the conclusion that since differences exist between “central ethnic groups” and “local ethnic groups”, there might be a huge gap between their collective and individual identities, including politics, culture, identities, discourses, genders, etc. The very concerning recent European migrant crisis, is actually related to the issue of nationality within a country. Thus, this work aims to present social status and reality of different races and ethnic groups on some international issues concerning nationality.

Ethnic Minority will involve interdisciplinary elements, such as dance theatre, speech theatre, visual documents, animation and so on. There are five women dancers and actresses in this work. At first, these women are from ethnic minorities, for example, a Tibetan of Tibet, a Mongolian from Inner Mongol, a Uyghur from Xinjiang. One of them might be from an ethnic group of a European country. These actresses are not necessarily professional dancers. It would be better if they are from different backgrounds and professions. But their ethnicities are settled.

This work in more details:

• First part: ethnic dances of these five selected ethnic minorities will be used as artistic language in the work.

• Second part: some documentary clips featuring landscapes in contemporary ethnic areas will be used as materials and played in the work.

• Third part: the life experience of the five ethnic actresses will be captured to interact with national authority in this work.

• Fourth part: an animation will be made to present the tendency of the development of ethnic characters in the world, in order to reflect the situation of ethnic groups in contemporary society.

Minorities was created in 2017. The World Premiere took place at the Munich Dance Festival in May 2017. It started touring in 2017, at the Tanz Festival in Heilborn , the Pumpenhaus in Muster and the Ostwest Tanz Festival in Geissen.

The Asian premiere took place at the Taipei Art Festival in August 2017. It was then performed at the Freiburh Art Festival in June 2017, and in October 2019, at the Canadian Stage Theatre in Toronto.