Picked from obscurity

If International Festival director Jonathan Mills wanted to create a melting pot of European and Asian culture this August, he could scarcely have chosen better than The Peony Pavilion. Performed by the National Ballet of China (NBC), this colourful full-length work blends both tradition and modernity, east and west. It also brings together one of China’s oldest creative talents, 16^th century playwright Tang Xianzu, and one of its new rising stars, 33-year-old choreographer, Fei Bo.

First performed in 1598 during the Ming dynasty, The Peony Pavilion is often referred to as the Chinese Romeo and Juliet – albeit with a happier ending than Shakespeare’s tragic romance. For centuries, the epic work has been performed in the Chinese opera style of Kunqu, lasting a bottom-numbing 20 hours – although, to be fair, drifting in and out of the performance, eating and even chatting were all part of the audience experience.

Happily for festival-goers, Fei has reduced The Peony Pavilion (or Mudantíng as it’s known in China) down to a far more manageable two-act ballet, lasting a little under two hours. It’s a considerable achievement, especially given this was Fei’s first attempt at a full-length ballet. He had been resident choreographer with NBC for five years when The Peony Pavilion premiered in 2008. The only new work the company presented that year, the pressure was on for Fei—a relative unknown with only short works under his belt—to come up with the goods.

“When I got the news that I needed to create this performance, I was a little bit nervous,” recalls Fei, “because I’d never choreographed a full-length ballet before – it all happened very suddenly for me. But I got a lot of inspiration from the dancers and through collaborating with the other artists who worked on the ballet. And while I was choreographing, I found out some new details about the story that I hadn’t known before, which was very interesting.”

Based in Beijing, the National Ballet of China was founded in 1959 by a Russian ballet artist and today claims to "walk on three legs". This means the company of 80 dancers performs traditional 19^th century European ballets like Swan Lake, Chinese works such as Raise the Red Lantern, and more modern works by choreographers such as William Forsythe. In Fei’s Peony Pavilion, however, all three legs are in motion at once.

On the one hand, he has used choreography born out of western classical ballet, performed by a full corps de ballet against a score incorporating Debussy, Holst and Prokofiev. On the other, The Peony Pavilion is a work deeply entrenched in Chinese literary history. Meanwhile Fei himself, having trained in modern dance at the Beijing Dance Academy, is a choreographer keen to take ballet into the future.

“Ballet is an artform with very strong standards and discipline and I hope that by using my own knowledge of other kinds of dance I can create new things for the ballet world,” he says. “I worked so hard to mix traditional Chinese movements and western ballet together, and I hope that through our work we can show The Peony Pavilion in a more contemporary way, and that audiences can find some modern themes and concepts in the ballet.”

The story itself centres on Du Liniang, the teenage daughter of an important official, who falls asleep by the eponymous pavilion and dreams of a young scholar, Liu Mengmei, whom she has never met. Upon waking, she attempts to find her dream lover, but when this proves impossible Du dies of a broken heart. Shakespeare would have left it there, but Tang Xianzu decided to give us a happy—if otherworldly—ending.

The judge of the underworld steps in and decrees that Du and Liu should marry. Du takes a starring role in Liu’s dream, causing him to fall in love with her, and the young man’s quest to exhume his new love begins. It's a lot more romantic than it sounds.

To shake things up a bit, Fei has added in two alter egos for Du, played by a flower goddess and a Kunqu opera singer. Lest there be any confusion over who is who, however, paramount importance was given to shaping each role into a recognisable character. “When I worked with the dancers, I told them how important it was to capture the characteristic of their roles,” says Fei, “and to make sure they were different from the other roles in the classical repertoire.”

Working alongside Fei on the production are Academy Award-winning costume designer Emi Wada, whose vibrant yet delicate creations perfectly complement Michael Simon’s striking set design, and composer Guo Wenjing, whose original score—tinged with the aforementioned European references and played live by the National Ballet of China Symphony Orchestra—proved inspirational to Fei.

“To tell the story of The Peony Pavilion using the language of ballet was a very good experience for me,” he says. “The melody was so beautiful, and I tried to translate that beauty into the ballet.”

National Ballet of China: The Peony Pavilion, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Saturday 13 – Monday 15 August, 7.30pm