Dance drama debuts with banquet of Beijing life

Dancer-choreographer Liu Yan staged her debut directorial dance drama Jing Yan on June 18 at the Century Theater in Beijing.

With "jing" referring to Beijing and "yan" banquet, the dance drama presented real Beijing cuisine onstage, such as dumplings, noodles and yuanxiao— small balls made of glutinous rice flour.

The dance drama follows the stories of several families living in a hutong, or narrow alley, in downtown Beijing for generations. After learning about the renovation of the hutong, they decide to have dinner together to bid farewell to old neighbors.

Graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy as one of the top classical dancers in 2003, Liu won several national awards and appeared at national galas as a solo dancer. At the height of her dance career, Liu severely injured her vertebrae during a rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The accident left her paralyzed below the waist, and she had to bid farewell to the stage to adjust to life in a wheelchair. However, this did not stop her from continuing to dance or trying to push the boundaries of the art.

After withdrawing from the limelight, Liu established the Liu Yan Arts Special Fund in 2010 to help students living in poverty as well as orphans and migrant workers' children through arts education. She is also devoted to dance movement therapy as a professor at the Beijing Dance Academy.

Liu launched her dance studio in 2019 and Jing Yan is the first dance drama the studio produced, gathering creative team members including scriptwriter Xu Rui and visual designer Ren Dongsheng. Young dancer-choreographers Wu Shuai and Wang Zihan are among those from Beijing Dance Academy playing lead roles in the dance drama.