Piece by Piece
Like two cicadas advancing, springing instep with each other, Tra Mi Dinh and Rachel Coulson manifest from the shadows of the deep stage of the new Union Theatre.
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Nine hundred years ago in China, a renowned poet-artist named Su Dongpo (1037-1101) lived in Meishan, a city in Sichuan Province. He lived during the Song Dynasty, a prosperous period known for the proliferation of poetry and sophistication in visual arts underpinned by classical Chinese philosophy. Today, everyone in China knows Su Dongpo’s poems—children memorize them in school and sing them as songs. In the poet’s hometown, now a modern day city of about 3 million people, a dance company formed in 2020 called Meishan Song and Dance Theatre. As inheritors of the Dongpo legacy, the company wanted to create a work around their cultural icon, but they had no one equipped for the epic challenge. So they approached the Beijing national arts team at China Oriental Performing Arts Group Co., Ltd., known for their large-scale productions using an artistic paradigm to promote cultural learning and exchange. The Beijing group recommended famed Chinese choreographer and visual artist Shen Wei from their experience working with him on the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics held in Beijing. In 2021, they began work on “Dongpo: Life in Poems,” and the production premiered in Shanghai in 2023. With additional support from the American Dance Festival, the show recently premiered in North America at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and then in New York at Lincoln Center.
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Like two cicadas advancing, springing instep with each other, Tra Mi Dinh and Rachel Coulson manifest from the shadows of the deep stage of the new Union Theatre.
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