The winter is Huolala…

January in Guangzhou, cold wind from the north was blowing. The temperature was pushed low, and then lower and yet lower.
But in Guangdong Modern Dance Company, a steamed-up atmosphere was hanging in the air. Seven dancers: Cheng Jin, Gao Jing, Lou Menghan, Ouyang Wenliang, Wan Jingyi, Wang Wanjing and Yu Lijun were busy choreographing their new works, to be shown at Winter In Actions on January 21st -22nd at the company studio theatre. With their minds racing in high frequencies all the time, there seemed to be no spare cells left to react to the temperature outside. The whole company are committed to the rehearsals. The rehearsal room remained a permanently high temperature zone. Dancers were sweating. Choreographers were exhausting their minds and appeared to be steaming. The air was animated, cheerful and yet charged. Who says the winter is cold? The winter is…hot!

Four works among the seven in Winter In Actions, namely: Blindness…Obscurity by Cheng Jin, Chase by Wang Wanjing, Meet…Join by Gao and Wang Jingyi, Before Dawn by Lou Menghan, were premiered on December 17th in the Culture and Arts Festival organized by Guangzhou Arts Academy and met with enthusiastic acclaims. After a month's revision and perfection, the works were more mature when staged on the 21st and 22nd. Meanwhile, Yu Lijung's Love and Ouyang Wenliang's Float…Road were dedicated works by the choreographers and were both exciting choreographies.

GMDC encourages dancers to create and provides opportunities for their works to be staged. According to the company, creativity is the characteristic of modern dance. Although every performance can be seen as a journey of creation by the dancer, to put the individual's ideas and feelings into dance and show it is the ultimate form of creation. The six pieces in Winter In Actions represented the choreographers' light whispers. They told pictures of the world in the choreographers' eyes.

Wang Wanjing's Chase reflected her experience in ballet and modern dance. Ballet and modern dance both originate from people's aesthetic appreciation and craving. Although they were once incompatible with each other in the past, there have also been ways to put them together.

Meet…Join by Gao Jing and Wang Jingyi expressed the craving between individuals. “Am I longing for the sunshine that is known to me alone? Seeking… giving up! We do not ask for much, only the touch in real, the feeling in real….”

Before Dawn by Lou Menghan tried to catch the feeling at the nanosecond when the first light wave opened up the world from the darkest and soundless moment before dawn.

Blindness…Obscurity showed the confusion in love relationships. How to measure the distance between two hearts? Is love indicated by being physically close? Or fusion of the hearts?

Yu Lijung's Love told about the contingency of life. She believes that “one needs to find four persons in his/life, one of which is the self, one is the person you love the most, one is the person who loves you the most and the last one is the person to spend the rest of your life with. In this world, whom have you met? And who has met you?”

Last but not the least, Ouyang Wenliang's Float…Road contemplated an individual's place in the vastness of time. “Time is something that does not allow one to stop and think. It vanishes. Question: “Is time behind me? Or am I behind it?” Before my life, it has appeared seven thousand eight hundred fifty six times. I know it will come eight hundred forty two times more after me. Do all these appearances mean only to quantify this life? Do all the incarnation cycles mean only to measure this very life? To prove ethereality? Is it? Is it not? Do I need an answer? Do I not?”