It wasn’t until 2005 that China had an independent professional dance company.
Tonight, that company will perform at Memorial Hall.
BeijingDance/LDTX — Lei Dong Tian Xia, or Thunder Rumbles Under Heaven — is stopping at UNC as part of an international tour.
On Tuesday, the company will perform “Unspeakable,” and Wednesday night, they will perform a number of pieces, including “All River Red (Rite of Spring),” a dance to Igor Stravinsky’s 1913 composition.
Willy Tsao — now the artistic director for BeijingDance — previously directed each of China’s official modern dance companies.
“Everything was paid for,” he said. “But of course the price is they do only works they are asked (by the government) to do.”
Tsao directed the first modern dance company in China, which was started after the Cultural Revolution in 1979 when the Chinese government began to be more permissive of Western influence.
The government had previously considered modern dance to be a capitalist device of corruption, Tsao said.
He said that sentiment was evident at one of the company’s first dances.