Poet-sage dances to the music of time

Du Fu was a Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) poet. A dance drama named after him was staged at Shanghai Oriental Art Center in the running for this year’s Wenhua Award at the 12th China Art Festival.

The performance, produced by the Chongqing Song and Dance Ensemble, mainly portrays the poet-sage’s wandering life as the Tang Dynasty passes from its glorious age into decline.

“Du was deeply concerned about his country and people. He saw others’ sufferings and misfortunes as his own. When I read his poems, I was deeply touched by his words,” said Han Zhen, one of the show's chief directors.

Born in AD 712, Du had an ambition to serve his country as a civil servant in his early years and took the imperial exam twice. The second time, all the candidates were failed by the prime minister and he never attempted the exam again.

Frustrated and poor, Du spent over 10 years in Chang’an, today’s Xi’an, the capital of the time. He eventually returned home to rural Shaanxi Province only to find that his son had starved to death.

“We began to work on the dance in 2015. Among the works we have created, this one took us the longest time. To be fully immersed in the performance, the dancers often burn sandalwood incense during rehearsals,” said Zhou Liya, another chief director of “Du Fu.”

“Normally, the dance productions feature conflicts between people. But this time, it is about the conflict between the outside world and Du’s inner world, which is difficult to express.”

To resolve the problem, there are two Du Fu, performed by twins, who stand on the stage simultaneously. They have a conversation through their body language.

“Most people think poets are a group of free and easy people. Those like Du Fu who reflected reality through their poems are a treasure of Chinese culture. While everyone looked at the clouds in the sky, Du kept his eyes on the earth beneath his feet,” said Han.