Next Gen News

Like many national ballet companies, the National Ballet of China grew from foreign imports taking root in native soil. It was founded on the last day of 1959 as the Experimental Ballet Company of the Beijing Dance School, a school which had itself been founded only in 1954. Two principal figures influenced both school and company. One was the "mother of Chinese ballet" Dai Ailian, founder of the Beijing Dance School and one of the ballet company directors. The other was Pyotr Gusev, a former director of the Kirov (now Mariinsky) Ballet; he instituted the Russian training system as the company's technical foundation.

Following the arrest of Madame Mao 10 years later, the company began to reform and grow as China began to open its cultural and economic doors. Ailian returned as director (1976-80) and then continued as artistic adviser, and the company began to invite overseas guests and to tour abroad. They accelerated in this direction under Zhao Ruheng, a former company dancer who, as artistic director from 1994 to 2009, negotiated huge transitions from state-socialist ideologies to free market ones. Under her enterprising leadership the company has a number of modern ballets, and toured internationally, staking its claim on the international stage. Since 2009 the company has been led by another former company dancer, Feng Ying.

For most of its history, the repertoire fell into two distinct categories, neatly Madame Zhao as "the red and white" summary. The white, traditional ballet classics such as Swan Lake and Giselle and the red were the Chinese revolutionary ballet The Red Detachment of Women, but also many other patriotic ballets over the years, such as Yellow River (2000), among others.

But as China on the international stage also grew his ballet, which significantly expanded its range of modern ballets from all over the world are - by George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Roland Petit and others - and in 2008 even collaborate on Bahok, a contemporary dance piece of British choreographer Akram Khan.

A new strand of Chinese ballet has also emerged in the last ten years, recently with the Peony Pavilion (2008), but most notably with Raise the Red Lantern (2001). Unlike Red Detachment, the new ballet was a legacy project as a revolutionary, mythologizing the past than the future: Its setting is feudal China, its heroine, an imperial concubine. The new ballet to put on a mix of ballet and traditional Chinese art and costumes, folk dance and Chinese opera. It was a big international hit - although more celebrated abroad than at home, where it is sometimes criticized for was retrogressive.

Who's who

The current artistic director is Feng Ying, with Wang Quanxing as deputy. Wang Caijun is the Accompanist . The company has its own orchestra, directed and performed by Zhang Yi.

Zhao Ruheng, interview with Connie Young, CBS News, 2011

"Shouldn't they do more Chinese stuff?" - Heritage ballets such as Raise the Red Lantern and The Peony Pavilion sell well to western audiences, but at least grant them the leeway to stage other ballets, old and new. After all, Swan Lake is as much part of the company history as Red Lantern.

Sylvia, a revival of a 1979 production of French dancer Lycett Darsonval

John Cranko 's Onegin

Raise the Red Lantern

Bahok, with Akram Khan Company

Where to see the National Ballet of China in the next

13-15 August 2011, Festival theatre, Edinburgh. For further performance dates, see the company website