Traditional Tales Retold

During the summer, two Chinese dance productions came to Koch Theater at New York’s Lincoln Center: “Lady White Snake” from Shanghai Grand Theater in July and “Butterfly Lovers” from Hong Kong Ballet in August. These traditional tales, perennial favorites for full-length treatments, are shown to advantage in dance productions. The principals’ large, bold steps and big sweeping turns, the massing of costumes in the ensembles, and skilled lighting projections of period settings—all contributed to evocative retellings of the traditional stories. Audiences loved the stagings, as did social media.

Performance

Hong Kong Ballet: “Butterfly Lovers” / Shanghai Ballet: “Lady White Snake”

Place

David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, NY, July & August 2025

Words

Eva S. Chou

Hong Kong Ballet in “Butterfly Lovers.” Photograph by Steven Pisano

Shanghai’s “Lady White Snake” updates its source by intercutting the traditional plot with a parallel, contemporary story that features the same four characters—Lady White Snake and the scholar who fall in love are a modern-day wife and husband, the monk who exposes her as a snake is a psychologist, while Green Snake, originally only a companion-maid, has expanded roles in dance and libretto. The resulting story is an ambitious sequence of alternating realities which are visually striking though confusing in intent.

The opening scene suggests the production’s potential. Set in the present, two lines of dancers in long pleated skirts of metallic grey and black entered from opposite sides of the stage, pushing shiny chrome shopping carts. On the backdrop, lighting projected a shopper’s paradise of fully stocked shelves reaching up out of sight. Later the shelves morphed into a latticework whose niches contained silhouettes of Chinese vases. Lady White Snake (Ao Dingwen, principal dancer with Liaoning Ballet) was not fitting well into this world of efficient haute consumption. Suddenly there was thunder and perhaps an earthquake. Everything fell. The people vanished. Green Snake appeared (Tan Yimei, principal dancer with Shanghai Grand Theatre’s opera ensemble). Rather than a maid, she seemed both alter ego and solicitous guardian as the two, excellent throughout in their demanding roles, dance together, their sinuous serpentine arms suggesting their real, snakey selves.

Another effective scene is a quiet one, the first scene to narrate the traditional tale. It depicts the lovers’ meeting: on a low moon bridge by a scenic lake, as it began to rain, he opened an umbrella to offer her shelter, and they danced gently, fluidly under it. (The scholar is Wu Husheng, principal dancer with Shanghai Ballet.) Another quiet scene is Green in her underwater home with her ensemble, also in green (eighteen blended shades, according to the souvenir program). In soft emerald lighting, their color and number were reminiscent of Balanchine’s “Serenade.”

Shanghai Ballet in “Lady White Snake.” Photograph by Steven Pisano

In general, however, the choreography, by Wang Peixian, expressed its energy through violence. Most notably, successive ensembles of men, dressed in flowing scholars’ gowns, or as attendants of the psychologist, or as a band of monks, converged on, pushed, trapped, and otherwise toyed with Green, Lady White Snake, and the scholar/husband. The principal role of monk was also aggressive throughout although in dance terms, Song Yu, principal dancer with Shanghai Grand Theatre’s opera ensemble, was admirable as he flung himself in martial arts-like aerial turns or posed in intimidating stances.

In contrast to “Lady White Snake,” Hong Kong Ballet’s “Butterfly Lovers” tells its story in a straightforward way. The heroine dresses as a male in order to attend school. She and a classmate fall in love, but she is summoned home to marry. He follows her, is beaten up, and dies of grief. She perishes at his grave, from which a pair of butterflies emerge.

Choreographer Hu Song Wei Ricky, assisted by Mai Jingwen, frames the story in a Juliet-like manner, for the heroine is first seen as a girlish tomboy when her strict parents come to her bedroom to admonish her. Then having learnt to love, she resists her now-implacable parents in the same bedroom setting and moves on to her death. Both casts of heroines (Zuan Chen, Ye Feifei) and their lovers (Ma Renji, Ruo Kato) danced with admirable fluency, especially in the first act when the period costumes must have been hampering. A nice touch is a pair of dream lovers who express the love the characters were beginning to suspect in themselves (Zhang Sening and Yang Ruiqi, Yonen Takano and Garry Corpus, also excellent).

Shanghai Ballet in “Lady White Snake.” Photograph by Steven Pisano

This love story is treated in choreography and special effects that seem too full. There are a great many duets, each with many lifts and throws, nearly all difficult—kudos to the dancers—but ultimately diluting. The three duets with her father are hard to interpret. There are 16 (allegorical) girls in white tutus. Special effects are also liberally employed, especially in the second act, after she returns home. These are arena-like: strobe flashes or back-lit scenes, against which ensembles move aggressively in unison to thumping, drumming music. Men, this time menservants, are again the enforcers. At one point they remove the heroine by force, carrying her out horizontally over their heads, unlikely treatment for the young lady of the house.

This is a curious offering from Hong Kong Ballet. Productions from the company tend to have modern Hong Kong settings (its “Romeo+Juliet,” seen in New York in 2022, is set in 1960s Hong Kong) or to be Western (“The Great Gatsby”). This work, however, is traditional in story and costume and has music that quotes liberally from the 1950s violin concerto “Butterfly Lovers,” long iconic on the mainland. There is no indication that the production originated in a Hong Kong-based ballet company.

These two productions, though from cities with different dance histories, both relied on famous Chinese tales and employed similar lavish theatrical treatments. Vast budgets, ultimately government-backed, and savvy marketing combined to generate well-filled houses. It is an open question going forward whether, for audiences watching dance from China, the kind of backing seen here will regularly result in more-is-better style of production, such as seen at the opening ceremonies of China’s 2008 Olympics.

Eva S. Chou

Eva Shan Chou is a cultural historian of China, currently at work on "Ballet in China: A History." She has published articles on the establishment of the Beijing School of Dance, on China's firstSwan Lake, the founding figure Dai Ailian, and China’s cultural policies. ForBallet Review(New York)she wrote on performances by Stuttgart Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Opera Ballet of Rome, as well as companies from China performing in the US.Sheis professor in the Department of English, Baruch College, City University of New York.

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