Avant-garde art show based on legends of literature premieres
An experimental multimedia art show, “The Little Everything and Peony Cosmos,” loosely based on the legacy of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen and Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu, will be premiered in Shanghai on June 11 at Daning Theater.
Initiated by Zhou Lei, a social anthropologist, the innovative show combines four different narratives and jarringly different rhetoric — Danish folktale, Brechtian fables, stanza-laden Chinese traditional literature and Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” an epic poem in blank verse.
Ballet performers Benjamin Buza and Emma Hakansson, from the Royal Danish Ballet, play the leading roles as two lovers who embark on a journey together.
Emma Hakansson plays Du Liniang in "The Little Everything and Peony Cosmos."
It starts in Andersen’s garden when the young man happens to touch the leaves of a stinging nettle on his morning walk. The poison manifests the uncanny chemistry into his body.
Andersen collapses into deep slumber, with half of his body glowing in the rising sun while the other half is exposed in moonlight.
When he wakes up, he finds himself in Tang’s “Peony Pavilion,” where peony flowers are ablaze in the violet-embroidered vale and a nightingale is tweets a sad song mourning the gentle summer.
Written in 1598, the “Peony Pavilion” is one of literature’s most memorable love stories and a masterpiece of Chinese Kunqu Opera. Its heroine, Du Liniang, is a cloistered girl living in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), who dreams of love, then dies pining for her dream suitor.
“I mean it to be a transcultural meme, which connects Andersen’s garden and Tang’s 'Peony Pavilion,'” said Zhou. “It doesn’t have to be reading when we approach Andersen’s art life. Likewise, you don’t have to be listening to Kunqu to get a sense of classic Chinese heritage novels. Stories can be read, performed and enjoyed as you wish.”
Zhou Lei, Chinese playwright and director
Co-created by artists, musicians and dancers from Denmark, China, Australia and Argentina, the theater project will be further developed into art courses and books for children’s education purposes, according to Zhou.
“The soul of man affects a kind of infinity in its objects. However, what good is it to possess a multitude of things? To find a cornucopia in a tiny mustard seed or blossom of a peony flower, to glimpse the kaleidoscope of cosmos via black and white color, to acquaint ourselves with the nature of things is never greater than when it is completed in its smallest possible form,” the 41-year-old said on the pamphlet of “The Little Everything and Peony Cosmos.”
Performance info
Date: June 11, 7:30pm
Venue: Daning Theater
Address: 1222 Pingxingguan Rd
Date: June 13, 7:30pm
Venue: Changjiang Theater
Address: 35 Huanghe Rd
