That's entertainment

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I came to China partly to ‘get out of my box’ and made a conscious decision to steer away from dance - that lasted about two minutes! The fates seemed to conspire to draw me back to my roots as I immediately met Guozhi and his dancer wife. This led me in a very roundabout way to find myself sharing a foot massage last week with two doyens of the London contemporary dance scene ………..bizarre. I won’t bore you all with the details but it did seem strange to sit having a Chinese banquet and talking ‘dance talk’ to Chinese and UK dance enthusiasts, in Beijing.

China’s contrasts are strikingly evident in the artistic entertainment on offer. Not long after I arrived I was taken to the brand new and iconic National Performing Arts Centre. In pride of place just down the road from Tian’amen Square and the Forbidden City it was one of the many building projects designed to impress visitors to the Olympics and completed just in time, and it is quite stunning. I saw a lecture demonstration of contemporary dance and I could not quite decide if it was fascinating or disappointing that I could have been in a dance studio anywhere in the world. The building is amazing though; you enter through a tunnel which takes you UNDER the surrounding lake and like most things Chinese, the place is huge. I spent hours just wandering around and looking at all the exhibitions of costumes.

Then a couple of week ago I went to the famous Laoshe Tea house for a very different taste of Chinese entertainment. Again the building is close to the heart of the city and is beautiful but this time in a very traditional way, with lots of red lanterns and fountains and peaceful, private rooms where you can take tea. We were served with a constant supply of tea and local delicacies while we watched a uniquely Chinese show - acrobats, magicians, folk music, dancers and the ceremony of tea making made into a performance in its own right. Plus a sample of Peking Opera - probably quite long enough (the real thing goes on for hours) and a grand finale of impressive, artistic Kung Fu. Great fun!

And then I was introduced to the real contemporary culture - Karaoke! I can honestly say I have never ‘done karaoke’ in my life; I’ve somehow managed to avoid those public humiliations in badly lit pubs in down town Cardiff - but this time I embraced the local culture, threw caution to the winds and belted out Diana Ross and Abba with the best of them! It was Karaoke but not as we know it - like a fairly up market private hotel room with flat screen TV, a few beers (local Tsingao is very good) and just a group of friends singing. People here are not easily embarrassed, there are far too many people to get much privacy so life is lived in the public eye and they don’t understand our British reserve at all.

ps and the foot massage was a wonderful, ambient piece of choreography, perfectly executed by a charming young man who didn’t speak English so he couldn’t talk to me, only touch………………my feet

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Photos

dancers
Chinese equivalent of the chorus line

at the tea house
looking a little warm and in need of some refreshing tea

Comments

[Geoffgreen]

Lovely colours
NIce pix Gillian, keep them coming. The weather here is scorching, and everyone seems to be absorbed by football fever! Tomorrow is England v Germany, should be a classic. Take care Geoff