What are the possibilities for experimental ballet in China today? How does the medium of dance allow artists to deconstruct and recreate literary classics? Based on more than six decades of experience in China's ballet world, Professor Xiao Suhua will discuss his views on contemporary ballet in China past and present. He will also introduce and discuss two of his own recent experimental dance adaptations of Chinese literary classics, including Legend of the White Snake and Dream of Red Mansions. A brief question and answer session will follow.

Xiao Suhua (肖苏华) ranks among China’s foremost choreographers and teachers of contemporary dance. Born in Moscow in 1937 to agents of China’s underground Communist Party, he trained in Soviet dance academies and returned to newly-established Communist China after the 1949 revolution. Prof. Xiao began his career as a conduit for Beijing-Moscow cultural exchanges, a role lasting into the 1960s. He survived persecution during the Cultural Revolution to emerge as one of China’s most influential advocates of contemporary dance. His choreography brings together Soviet dramatic and symphonic dance idioms with traditional Chinese tales like Dream of the Red Chamber and White Snake. Today, Prof. Xiao maintains close creative relationships with global dance institutions including the Bolshoi Ballet, traveling frequently and sitting on numerous juries in Asia and Europe. This will be his first lecture and workshop series in the United States, offering a rare window into the contemporary arts culture of China and Russia, and the history of Sino-Soviet cultural collaboration. Prof. Xiao is fluent in Russian and Mandarin.

This presentation is co-sponsored by the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at U-M.