One of China's best contemporary dance choreographers Li Hanzhong has a lot on his plate.

His dance "All River Red" will be staged at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC from October 7 to 9 and he is also choreographing the musical "Song of the Light and Shadow," which will premiere in December in Beijing.

CCTV-6, the movie channel of China Central Television, and New Music Entertainment have jointly invested in the musical to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of movies in China.

Li and his wife, Ma Bo, created "All River Red" to Stravinsky's 1913 classic work "The Rite of Spring" for the 2001 Beijing Contemporary Dance Showcase.

"I had thought about creating a dance to 'The Rite of Spring' for a long time," Li said from the steps of the room where he had just finished the morning's rehearsal. "It was the first contemporary dance I watched on video when I was in dance school.

"Many great choreographers have created works to that fascinating music, and I knew I could do it only once. I waited for the time and opportunity till I really felt something that I could express through it," said Li.

That opportunity came in May 2001. Willy Tsao, then artistic director of the Beijing Modern Dance Company and curator of the Beijing Modern Dance Showcase, was working on a show to close that year's event.

Tsao wanted a new work. Up stepped, Li with his piece set to "The Rite of Spring."

"Stravinsky's music was controversial when it was composed. Modern dance in China is in a similar situation," said Li.

The dance manifests the demise of the non-conformist and also features the struggle behind developing modern dance in a culture rooted in ancient traditions.

Promoting modern dance

Four years later, Li and others like him continue efforts to expand the artistic base for modern dance in China.

Although this dance form entered China in 1935, it is not widely understood and accepted by the Chinese even today, Li said.

China's first modern dance company was founded in 1992 in Guangzhou, where the growth of a dynamic dance scene happened a little more easily.

In 1999, Tsao, Li and some other dancers left the Guangdong Modern Dance Company for the Beijing Modern Dance Company, which was affiliated to the Beijing Song and Dance Company.

They hoped to strengthen the impact of modern dance in the northern part of China.

They gave regular shows, established fan clubs, offered training courses in colleges and held the annual Beijing Modern Dance Showcase.

In 2001, they became independent from the Beijing Song and Dance Company. Moving out from the government-funded company meant losing financial support from the Beijing government as well as the license to stage commercial shows.

Without the license, the Beijing Modern Dance Company gradually faded from the capital's cultural scene.

But luckily for Li and the company, their performances have won much acclaim from abroad, which brings them many more opportunities to tour than most State-owned companies. "Anyway, modern dance is not popular entertainment, and I do not expect it to appeal to the masses, although we will not give up promoting it in China," Li said.

"We target people who have a sense of art," he said, but added that more people were investigating modern dance.

He said when they took over the Beijing Modern Dance Company, audiences came for many different reasons. Some sought the oddity of avant-garde dance; others came to see the then head of the company, Jin Xing, who underwent a transsexual procedure. But when she left to develop her career in Shanghai, her fans stopped coming.

"But now, those who have remained with us are real fans who love modern dance for itself," Li said.

He has reason to be optimistic. The Revised Regulations on the Administration of Commercial Performing Arts issued by the Ministry of Culture cancelled the commercial performance license, which means Li and colleagues can again give regular performances to the public. Now that the Beijing Modern Dance Company has established itself, Tsao and Li are planning to leave.

They are putting together a new ensemble called Lei Dong Tian Xia with some former colleagues and some newcomers.

"One company for such a big capital is far from enough," Li said, adding that Paris and New York each have many more modern dance companies than Beijing.

Personal experiences

The personal rise-and-fall career of Li, 37, reflects the development of Chinese modern dance.

At 11, Li was selected by an art troupe of the army at a local children's palace because he was tall and handsome. He served in the army as a dancer for 19 years.

After decommissioning, he entered the Beijing Dance Academy, majoring in Chinese folk dance education.

"I was not interested in the courses because all the movements the teachers taught me were fixed and written in the books," he said.

"I had to copy every fixed movement to my students since it was an education major and I was supposed to be a teacher after graduation. There was nothing about creation and innovation."

Upon graduation, he did not want to be a teacher or a dancer.

At the Guangdong Modern Dance Company he could choreograph freely.

"But in the first few years, I wanted to change my career," he said. "I was seduced by the colorful outside environment. Many friends told me modern dance would never be popular. They thought I had the ability to choreograph mainstream dances that could earn me both reputation and money."

However, the allure of creating, the close relationship between colleagues and, most importantly, the spiritual reward from every work he choreographs have gradually bound him to modern dance.

"The more I choreograph, the deeper I know about modern dance," Li said.

"Now dancing as I like has become my lifestyle or, say, something in my blood. I enjoy creating and enjoy expressing myself with my body and through physical movements."

(China Daily October 6, 2005)