SIDCT Upcoming Dance Performances in November

A piano. A voice. Bodies in movement. A sleepless journey from dusk to dawn to evoke the mysteries of feeling, consciousness and memory.

Through words and bodies, Nocturna proposes a dance, music and poetry exploration of the great topics and contradictions of the night, with the lucidity and hallucination of those who watch, those sleepless, party versus quiet...without overlooking the night as a mystical experience, as a visionary path and its opposite: the night as a game, as a playful ritual of identity confusion.

The night, the great shadow, has been an immense source of inspiration for great artists of all times and disciplines. To stay up, to stay awake, has acquired profound cultural meanings throughout the centuries, from the vigil of arms to the restlessness of love, passing through the magical, tragic or festive vigil; to spend the night awake is to enter our dark side.

As a time of sleep, insomnia or nightmare, as a magical or cursed space, as a time for rest or for madness, as a storehouse of terrors or fantasies, the human being finds in this dark mirror the reflection of their greatest questions, which we formulate today in the key of flamenco.

The night changes things, it transforms, it confuses, it moves: it is pure movement. Today we follow its steps. Today we dance until dawn.

Date & Time:

19:30, November 2, 2024

14:00, November 3, 2024

Venue: SIDC Grand Theater

Duration: Approximately 70 min

Direction and Choreography by Rafaela Carrasco

Dramaturgy by Álvaro Tato

Performance team：Rafaela Carrasco Company

Tickets: 80/180/280/380/480/580/680/880 RMB

Hotline: 021-52990372/52995821

Purchase Online

The large-scale original dance drama THE THUNDER is produced, created, and performed by the Beijing Dance Drama and Opera, part of the Beijing Performance and Arts Group. Following the success of the award-winning dance drama "Five Stars Rising in the East," this new work is an adaptation of the popular iQIYI TV drama THE THUNDER. It is the first dance drama in China focused on anti-drug themes, inspired by real-life cases from the "Thunderstorm Crackdown" series.

The drama tells the moving story of two generations of anti-drug officers, father and son, who face dangers and sacrifices head-on, risking their lives to dismantle underground drug networks. Their dedication to the anti-drug cause is portrayed through their passionate and selfless contributions to protecting light and justice. Due to their special roles, anti-drug officers remain anonymous during their lives and have no monuments after death. Yet, they convey a powerful message: "I turn my back to you because I face the darkness."

Date & Time:

2024.11.7 19:30

2024.11.8 19:30

Venue: Grand Theater @ Shanghai International Dance Center

Creative Team

Chief Organiser: YANG Zhaoheng

Chief Producer: ZHAO Jing

Chief Coordinator: HOU Hong

Performance Director: YU Jian

Chief Financial Officer: LIU Pingping

Publicity Advisor: MA Guoyin

Producer: LE Bojuan

Artistic Advisor: LIU Zhiwei

Literary Project Manager: LIN Weiran

Chief Directors: HUANG Yunsong, WANG Zhenbing

Playwright: QU Shifei

Composer: YANG Fan

Set Designers: LIU Kedong, WANG Yuechen

Choreographers: LIU Yang, GONG Xingxing

Lighting Designers: LIU Ning, QI Haiyang

Costume Designer: LI Bingxin

Stylist: TONG Yao

Multimedia Designer: LIU Shuangchen

Props Designer: WANG Tingting

Graphic Designer: ZHANG Hongke

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The poetic dance NINE SONGS is produced by Beijing Tiangiao Performing Arts Center, co-produced with Beijing Dance Drama & Opera, CPAA Theatres, and Beijing Cloud above the Sky Culture.

The poetic dance NINE SONGS draws inspiration from several poems by Qu Yuan.

It uses the pairings of deities worshipped by ancient Chu people of China—" The Lord of the East " and " The Lord of Clouds", " The Mountain Spirit " and " The River Earl", " The Goddess of the Xiang " and " The Lady of the Xiang", " The Greater Master of Fate'" and " The Lesser Master of Fate "—to create a stage tableau that embodies the four dimensions of Heaven, Earth, Human and Divine. Through dance, the divine is sculpted, and through the divine, human nature is symbolized.

Directed by dancer Etoile Hu Yang, along with the leading creation team, the production imbues traditional beauty with contemporary interpretations, evoking a profound resonance through Eastern philosophical reflections.

Date & Time:

2024.11.11 19:30

2024.11.12 19:30

Venue: Grand Theater @ Shanghai International Dance Center

Creative Team

Director: HU Yang

Playwright: ZHANG Ping

Composers: YANG Fan, ZHANG Yixin, CHEN Yihan

Executive Director: ZHANG Xiaochuan

Invited Choreographer: GEN Zibo

Invited Composer: FENG Mantian

Scenic Design: LIU Xinglin

Lighting Design: XIAO Lihe

Costume Design: YANG Donglin

Style Design: JIA Lei

Sound Design: SHEN Tian

Ticket: 880/680/480/280 RMB

Hotline: 021-52990372、52995821

Purchase Online

A triple bill of works by Pina Bausch and Germaine Acogny.

Pina Bausch's solo PHILIPS 836 887

DSY and THE RITE OF SPRING join Germaine Acogny's solo, HOMAGE TO THE ANCESTORS to create an electric evening of works never seen together before to Chinese audiences.

Performed by Eva Pageix, PHILIPS 836 887

DSY is a rarely performed solo created by Pina Bausch in 1971 to the music of French electronic composer Pierre Henry. Originally danced by Pina Bausch herself, the piece is one of her very first choreographies. The title refers to the label and catalogue number of the initial LPrelease in 1969 of Henry's 1955 composition Spirale.

HOMAGE TO THE ANCESTORS, choreographed and danced by Germaine Acogny, draws on the culture of respect for ancestors in Africa, the feeling of being in contact still and being guided and protected by them. For Germaine, the dead are not dead, they are in the wind, in the flowers, in the water. They are with us.

She pays

tribute to them through her dance, her body speaking with great sensitivity, making us feel the connection with them.

THE RITE OF SPRING will be danced by a specially assembled company of 32 dancers from African countries. Faithful to Stravinsky's composition, this seminal work examines unyielding ritual, with the sacrifice of a 'chosen one changing the season from winter to spring.

Date & Time: 

2024.11.15 19:30

2024.11.16 19:30

2024.11.17 14:00

Venue: Grand Theater @ Shanghai International Dance Center

Duration: 106 mins (including 30 mins intermission)

Choreographers: Pina Bausch, Germaine Acogny

Co-production: Pina Bausch Foundation (Germany), Ecole des Sables (Senegal), Sadler’s wells(UK)

Tickets: 180/280/380/480/580/680/880/1080/1280 RMB (Sold Out)

Hotline: 021-52990372/52995821

COMING UP ROSES is an attitude, a process-this is their "first step," and everything is gradually falling into place...

The 8th Young Artists Platform Of Dance, COMING UP ROSES, features six works from emerging choreographers born in the '90s and 2000s. These pieces reflect their keen observation of everyday life and diverse artistic perspectives.

Date & Time:

2024.11.22 19:30

2024.11.23 19:30

Venue: Experimental Theater @ Shanghai International Dance Center

Duration: Approximately 100 minutes

Tickets: 80/180/280RMB

Hotline: 021-52990372/52995821

Purchase Online

For me, "A Yang Bai" is a stone. A stone is time, and time is life.

This is a tale of my mother and me, of the stars, soil, mountains, pine trees, stones, wind, and the hardworking villagers from my hometown.

I saw the wrinkles on the faces of the elders, the calluses upon my mother's hands. I meet those who live with strong will, broken in form but still filled with remarkable vitality.

It is they who have stirred my soul, who have gifted me power and inspiration.

At age twenty-four, I choreographed my first work, THE BAWANG WHIP. And with it began my search for roots of my dance. A journey of five years before I found A YANG BAL.

A YANG BAI is the deep reflection of my soul, my meditation on life itself.

Date & Time: 

2024.11.26 19:30

2024.11.27 19:30

Venue: Experimental Theater @ Shanghai International Dance Center

Duration: Approximately 60 minutes

Tickets: 80/180/280RMB

Hotline: 021-52990372/52995821

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BEHIND THE CITY (Shih-shuo Hsin-yi/A New Account of Tales of the World) is a three-act physical theater piece inspired by the same-titled collection of anecdotes from the Song of the Southern dynasties, written by Liu Yiqing. The dance borrows the titles "Guile and Chicanery," "Taunting and Teasing," and "The Square and the Proper" from the original text, parodying the clamor and disorder of modern times, and presenting a search for the authenticity of life.

The work, presented in symbolic and allegorical form, employs absurdity, irony, and the spectacle of bodies and set pieces to reveal the human condition amidst the transformations of the era. It portrays the alienation and dislocation of existence, prompting questions about the true meaning of civilization and existence. The layered world created by the stage design is riddled with fractures divisions of space, identity, perception, and the separation between self and others. The stage space is filled with manipulation, lies, deceit, and endless conflicts, staging a desolate carnival where eros vanish. Against this backdrop arises a longing for "life-time," a yearning to transcend division and emptiness, and return to the "dance of life"—a place of playfulness and authenticity. Though the world may feel upside down, may you always remember the pulse of life.

Date & Time:

2024.11.27 19:30

2024.11.28 19:30

Venue: Grand Theater @ Shanghai International Dance Center

Duration: Approximately 70 minutes

Tickets: 80/180/280RMB

Hotline: 021-52990372/52995821

Purchase Online

BLUESHIFT INFINITE CYCLE by LI Kehua

After the lightning, the night sky appears to remain the same...

This piece guides the audience back to the primordial state, where chaos had not yet given birth to all things, to a time a place where circles morph from squares and squares emerge from circles. With confined yet precise bodily language, the work attempts to express the unembellished truths that have always existed, the end is also the beginning. Life constantly moves outward, yet it is often guided by time to return inward, to the center. The circular path flows continuously, endlessly repeating, and all the unresolved matters of the world will approach, converge, and blend countless times until the inevitable resolution is revealed. Even if one ever reaches a predetermined end, a new cycle will begin again.

Zen symbolisms charge the physical space in which the work takes place, where the distinctions between the self and the other dissolve. The dancers' bodies form symmetry, spirals, and ever-changing mandalas, resembling boundless infinity. As the cycles evolve, the audience naturally connects with the innate truth within themselves-"the Dao" has always been at the center of the circle. We are merely attempting to open a moment of opportunity, like a speck of dust in the cosmos, to touch upon more perspectives of truth.

AUTUMN by LI Chen

We break through time and space in the seasons of harvest and decay. When we say goodbye under the setting sun, it is also a moment of life's accumulation and sublimation.

The inspiration for this work comes from the speculative theory of the "parallel universe," with its core theme centered on the bonds formed by fate. The piece constructs different life worlds at the crossroads of destiny, portraying scenes of urban life between friends, infused with the passion and intensity of love, and carrying the tenderness and longing for lost loved ones. The choreographer reflects on life and death, with all elements of the choreography breaking through the constraints of time and space within the tangible stage. The emotions evoke a romantic imagining of the soul. Autumn is both a season of harvest and of decay. As the autumn feeling deepens, it seems like a beautiful blessing sent by loved ones from another world, like a gentle spring breeze.

Date & Time:

2024.11.30 19:30

2024.12.01 14:00

Venue: Grand Theater @ Shanghai International Dance Center

Duration: Approximately 100 minutes (including 10 mins intermission)

Tickets: 80/180/280RMB

Hotline: 021-52990372/52995821

Purchase Online

What motivates the body, and moves us forward?

In the wake of the pandemic, human body and perception are being distorted and fragmented amid the rapid technological advancement and the harsh realities of war. The world seems to become an illusion, manipulated at humanity's whim.

Between 2022 and 2024, I grounded my inquiry in the interplay between movement and human psyche. By slowing down and amplifying the hidden, surging forces, I observed the characteristics of change from one stage to another-within birth, death, identity, faith, and emotion. Through the choreographic microscope in MORPHING, I examine their interconnectedness in movement, time, and space, re-experiencing and contemplating the human condition and the possibilities of reincarnation into timelessness.

Date & Time:

2024.11.30 16:30

2024.12.01 16:30

Venue: Grand Theater @ Shanghai International Dance Center

Duration: Approximately 60 minutes

Hotline: 021-52990372、52995821

Purchase Online

1. Ticket purchase methods: When you purchase online, you can choose either an electronic ticket (exchange for paper ticket at the on-site self-service ticket machine) or have a paper ticket mailed to you. Tickets can also be bought on-site at the box office.

2. Ticket collection: To avoid large gatherings before the performance, the box office will manage crowd distribution. Please collect your tickets before the day of the performance or arrive 90 minutes early on the day of the performance and follow the theater's orderly ticket collection process.

3. Entry time: To prevent large gatherings before the performance, you can enter the theater 60 minutes before the performance starts. Seating in the auditorium begins 30 minutes before the performance.

4. Please confirm your order details (performance time, ticket price, quantity, seats, etc.) when purchasing. Tickets are non-refundable and non-exchangeable once sold.

5. After purchasing tickets, you can request an invoice via the SIDCT public WeChat account by clicking [Request Invoice]. Invoice requests must be made within five working days after the performance ends. Invoices will be issued collectively after the performance.