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Legendary Chinese Story Performed with Jazz by Taiwan Artists
A Chinese legendary love tragedy, the "Story of White Snake", performed by a Taiwan dance troupe has caught wide attention at the Sixth China Art Festival in Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu Province.
The dance of "White Snake" not only presented the bold and powerful style of western dance, but also incorporated oriental dances, according to Peggy Wu, director and actress of the show.
Wu, who specialized in traditional Chinese dance, held an interest in jazz after she accidentally watched a jazz show 20 years ago.
She then went to the United States to study jazz and hoped that someday she could perform traditional Chinese dances with jazz to show foreigners about Chinese culture.
Few people knew about jazz in Taiwan in the early 1980s when she first performed the dance. Wu thus became a pioneer in teaching the American folk dance. She founded the Peggy Wu Jazz Dance Company in 1989.
The troupe is known for its innovation in performing forms and styles, and is especially famous for combining jazz dance with the essence of Chinese traditional dances.
In Chinese fairy tales, the White Snake, after practicing asceticism for thousands of years, became a beautiful woman named Bai Shuzhen. She met a young man named Xu Xian. They fell in love and got married.
Their tranquil family life, however, was disrupted by an old monk named Fahai, the representative of those advocating a rigorous moral code, and in the end, Bai and her husband was separated.
Peggy Wu said that she chose to perform the "Story of White Snake" with jazz because of the similarity of the two dances.
The Jazz drama of "Story of White Snake", characterized by its connection with Chinese tradition, integrated traditional Chinese culture with western jazz to produce the first "Chinese Jazz Dance" in Asia and worldwide, said Peggy Wu.
In order to show more Chinese characteristics in the Jazz drama of the White Snake, Peggy Wu said that she added certain aspects of Peking Opera and Chinese acrobatics.
The drama has been staged by Peggy Wu Jazz Dance Company in Xuzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou cities in Jiangsu Province, which are the sub-venues of the national-level art gala that started on September 28. The drama has been warmly welcomed by the audience.
Although the audience in Chinese mainland seem unfamiliar with jazz, they will gradually accept the dance just like in Taiwan, said Peggy Wu, adding that dancing is a worldwide language.
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