Wind Flows, Water Floats

Text:Zhu Maowen

“More face light at the central stage, give me a softer blue…That’s it… next cue…” “Music! next passage”. On the stage, the dancers are busy spacing and marking. There are 8 hours left before the performance begins and dancers of the Wind Flows, Water Floats are having the last rehearsal. The choreographers of The Green Grain, Huang Lei and Tiny Corridor, Huang Chunjun are rushing between the stage and the control room. They are not only the choreographers,. They are also the lighting designer, the sound engineer and dancers…

Although the knew that the showwas going to loose money, Huang Lei and Huang Chunjun still decided to bring it on stage.Modern dance has managed to gather a certain number of audience in big cities like Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai; but Nanning is still much far behind. Despite this, they managed to sell most of the tickets. On the day of the show, more than 300 seats are all sold out. Modern dance is not unworkable in Nanning afterall.

On 27th May, the Guangxi Children Theatre was filled with a merry atmosphere, although it is still 3 days away from Children’s Day and that the show actually has nothing to do with children. The auditorium was fully packed. At 20:00 sharp, the curtain was drawn and a 2 hour show starts with Tiny Corridor’s Choice,, followed by Searching for Yueya Spring , Trace of Wind , and Spring.

At the end of the performance, The Image Youth Dance Company founded not long before by Guangxi Arts College, led by their director Minrui, bowed to the dancers and said “thanks” for 3 times. People have sometimes joked with The Green Grain and Tiny Corridor that if they would fight against each other like competitors because they are situated in the same city. As a matter of fact, they are friends to each other. Take this performance as an example, the two groups sponsor it together and they even take part in each other’s works. In their respect, their dance really has no boundary.

 

About Tiny Corridor & The Green Grain

The Green Grain Dance Society and Tiny Corridor are both in Nanning, Guangxi. The initiators are both named Huang, and the two dance groups are connected in many ways.

The Green Grain Dance Society

The Green Grain Dance Society is a private organization founded by a group of dance lovers in school. It all started in 2001 during the production of “Starting Point”, a school modern dance production. When they were planning for the show, Huang Lei decided that the production should better have an independent “habitat” instead of affiliating to the school’s administration. In the rehearsal process, more dancers joined. They are either dance lovers in school or alumni who found themselves unable to separate with dancing. Before they put the program note into print, they decided to call themselves The Green Grain, and a dance company is thus born.

As a matter of fact, Huang Lei knew nothing about dance before he entered university as undergraduate in the computer and information engineering school. He fell in love with dancing and in particular modern dance. After he graduated from the university, he took a half year course of choreography in Beijing. Although he lacks the figure and technique of most professional dancers, he uses his instinct to mobilize the most expressive energy inside his body. Most dancers in Green Grain are non-professional dancers and they do the same as Huang to compensate. Huang has broad interests. He loves movie, literature, music and theatre and therefore he often uses ideas and techniques in other media to combine in his dance.

The Green Grain did not attract much attention in their first years. But they never gave up. But Huang maintained that “Grand thoughts and fancy plans are meaningless. The most important thing is that dance consolidates us as a group. We carry too much burden and restrain. To overcome it requires passion and courage”

The Green Grain started showing their works in the Beijing Modern Dance Festival since 2002. That year, they brought “Swirl”. When the festival was moved to Guangzhou, they followed it there and performed “A Long Journey” in the 1st Guangdong Modern Dance Festival. This year, their work “Spring” impressed every audience at the Youth Dance Marathon. The Green Grain has been growing, year by year.

 

Tiny Corridor

Many professional dancers may feel ashamed when they see Huang Chunjun and his dance. Huang Chunjun does not have a ‘good’ figure. He is only 1.6m tall and he started dancing only at 16, too late for a professional dancer. But once he is on stage, he forgets his height. You see only a elf dancing to the wind….

GuangxiNationalityArtsSchool assigned Huang Chunjun to study instrumental music because he is not tall enough.. After a few days, his subject was closed due to lack of teachers and Huang was transferred to dance major.. At the beginning, he was put at the most unnoticeable corner. Several months later, he was able to stand at the front. Others may think that he was lucky, but he knew that it wais not. He was crazy about dancing and spent hours and hours practicing after class.

In 1992 Liu Fengxue’s New Classical Dance Company from Taiwan performed in Guangzhou. Huang Chunjun went to the shows and was immediately attracted by modern dance.. He was deeply impressed by the freedom this dance form can offer. Later he went to study choreography in BeijingDanceAcademy. From then on, he choreographed for himself and danced a lot. In 1996, he became the choreographer of Guangxi Song and Dance Troupe and created his first modern dance work.

When Huang Chunjun knew that Huang Lie has set up his own dance group, he got several of his friend dance lovers and formed Tiny Corridor. In fact, it had always been his dream to have his own dance group. The founding members of Tiny Corridor are dance teachers in ChuangyiArtsSchool and some of them as short as him. The name Tiny was chosen the denote this characteristic of the group .

In 2004, Huang Chunjun and his Tiny Corridor participated in the 1st Guangdong Modern Dance Festival with their work the Flavor of Coffee. In 2005, they brought Choice、Trace of Wind、Searching for Yueya Spring. At the closing party of the festival, Tiny Corridor and The Green Grain were the first to be introduced to other participants from all over China.

Huang Chunjun and Tiny Corridor are becoming more and more mature. When asked about plans for the future, Huang said he has not thought about it too much. But one thing is for sure: he will go on choreographing and dancing and hopefully one day he will have a performance of his own works.