JIN XING DANCE THEATRE SHANGHAI
Download Press Release (Adobe PDF)
For immediate release, please
Press contact: Richard
Kornberg & Associates, (212) 944-9444
Richard Kornberg / Billy
Zavelson / Danielle McGarry
Richard@KornbergPR.com /
Billy@KornbergPR.com / Danielle@KornbergPR.com
PHOTOS: www.kornbergpr.com
(username: kornbergpr // password: press)
THE JOYCE THEATER
FOUNDATION
PRESENTS
JIN XING
PERFORMING IN NEW
YORK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OVER 20 YEARS WITH
JIN XING DANCE THEATRE
SHANGHAI
THE JOYCE THEATER
JANUARY 31 –
FEBRUARY 5
The Joyce Theater
Foundation is pleased to present the
long-awaited, highly anticipated New York return of choreographer and artist Jin Xing, with her company Jin Xing Dance Theatre Shanghai – after a 20-year absence and for the first time as a woman – from January 31 – February 5, 2012. For this engagement, the company will perform Shanghai
Tango, a collection of ten works created by Jin Xing over the last 25
years. Tickets for Jin Xing Dance
Theatre Shanghai range in price from $10-$39 ($10 - $29 for Joyce Members) and
are available through JoyceCharge at www.Joyce.org or by calling 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to
change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th
Street, in Chelsea.
One of the most fascinating
choreographers and artists performing today, the beautiful “prima ballerina” Jin Xing, who was born a boy, discovered
a passion for dance when he was 6. After many years of ballet school (without the support or encouragement
of his family), he joined the People’s Liberation Army and danced in the army’s
ballet company. Although suffering
from continuous confusion about his identity and discomfort during the
aggressive military training, he successfully advanced to the rank of Colonel
while also dancing in many of the nation’s top ballets.
In 1995, while in his
mid-twenties, he began the process of becoming a woman, which included three
surgeries, several months spent wheelchair-bound, a strong regiment of hormones
and very little public support. After
regaining her strength, she began performing again with the surprising support
of some journalists and Communist Party officials. Her dance pieces became more extravagant and technically
challenging and featured different dance styles. Although initially supportive of her ballets, the Chinese
government did not approve of her desire to create modern dance works. After a bitter battle with the
government over a new production of her “Carmina Burana,” she was allowed to
present only one performance. The
production next went to Paris, where it played for several sold-out
months.
Now, almost 20 years later,
married and with three adopted children, Jin Xing returns to New York with Shanghai Tango, ten works that she
created over the last 25 years. Set to an eclectic collage of music from
Astor Piazzolla to Johann Strauss, the piece uses the
sometimes sleazy, sometimes playful, but always sensuous, rhythmic, and
passionate components of the tango as a conceptual framework to explore
contemporary Shanghai culture. This wondrous movement landscape is
striking in its visual melding of Eastern and Western artistic threads.
The
Joyce Theater Foundation presents Jin Xing Dance Theatre Shanghai from
January 31 – February 5. Performances are Tuesday –
Wednesday at 7:30pm; Thursday – Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 2pm & 8pm;
Sunday at 2pm. Tickets range in
price from $10-$39 ($26 - $29 for Joyce Members) and are available through JoyceCharge at www.Joyce.org or by calling
212-242-0800. Please note: Tickets
prices are subject to change. Dance
Chat, a free post-performance discussion, will take place on Wednesday, February
1. This free discussion is open to
all patrons attending that evening’s performance. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street, in Chelsea.
# # #
Jin Xing started her remarkable life journey in 1967, when China was caught in the
throes of the Cultural Revolution. Born male to parents of Korean descent, Jin
Xing joined the People’s Liberation Army at age nine and enrolled in the famous
military dance ensemble in Shenyang. There she received training from China’s
leading ballet teachers, and at age nineteen, Jin Xing traveled to New York to
study the dance techniques of dance luminaries Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and Jose Limon.
After performing and teaching
in the United States and throughout Europe, Jin Xing returned to China in 1993
and elected to have sexual reassignment surgery, the first such operation to be
officially approved by Chinese authorities. In spite of the Chinese
government’s initial reluctance to acknowledge Jin Xing after her surgery, it now considers her a “cultural
leader.” Her story has garnered extraordinary interest both within China and
abroad: a documentary on Jin Xing’s life, entitled Colonel Jin Xing, was released by French filmmakers in 2001, and
Jin Xing published a memoir in 2007 describing her time in the People’s
Liberation Army, her sexual transition, and her career as a dancer. As
articulated in a recent Newsweek article, “hers is not simply a tale of individual struggle and perseverance,
but also a story of how Chinese society – while still constrained
politically – has liberalized further in terms of art and culture than
many in the West might expect.”
Throughout her career, Jin
Xing has received international acclaim and awards, including the Best Dancer
of China award at age 17, the prestigious "Wenhua Prize" of the
Chinese Ministry of Culture, and the “Best Choreographer Award” at the American
Dance Festival in 1991. Jin Xing has also been named an honorary member of the
European League of Institute of the Arts and received an honorary doctorate
degree from Dartington College of Arts in the United
Kingdom.
Founded in 1999 as China’s
first independent modern dance company, Jin Xing Dance Theatre Shanghai has
come to embody and expand on its leader’s artistic vision. The company has
sustained international recognition for outstanding artistry with performances
throughout the world, including appearances at festivals such as the Adelaide
Festival in Australia, La Biennale di Venezia in Italy, Dance Umbrella London in the UK, Impulstanz Vienna in Austria, and Steps in Switzerland.
About The Joyce Theater Foundation
The Joyce Theater
Foundation, a non-profit
organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences for
three decades. The founders, Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea,
which opened as The Joyce Theater in 1982. The Joyce Theater is named in honor
of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T.
Mertz. It was LuEsther’s clear, undaunted vision and
abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build
the theater. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce
Theater has provided an intimate and elegant home for more than 320 domestic
and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new
dances since 1992. In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center
providing highly subsidized rehearsal and performance space to hundreds of
dance artists, as well as special residency opportunities for selected
choreographers to support the creation of new work. In 2009, The Joyce opened
Dance Art New York (DANY) Studios to provide affordable studios for rehearsals,
auditions, classes, and workshops for independent choreographers, non-profit
dance companies, and the dance/theater communities. New York City public
school students and teachers annually benefit from The Joyce’s Dance Education
Program, and adult audiences get closer to dance through informative Dance
Talks, Joyce Pre-Show gatherings, and post-performance Dance Chat
discussions. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of
approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of
135,000.
# # #
Leadership support for The
Joyce Theater’s 2011–2012 season has been received from the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.
Lead
support for accessible and inclusive programming provided by MetLife
Foundation.
This presentation of Jin Xing
Dance Theatre Shanghai is made possible by the MetLife Community Connections
Fund of the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project. Major
support for NDP is also provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with
additional funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Boeing Company
Charitable Trust. Additional support provided by The R. Britton Fisher
and Family Gift for International Dance.
This presentation is also is
made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of
Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and supported, in
part, by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York
City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; as
well as with private funds from the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund
to encourage the performances of out-of-town companies at The Joyce
Theater.
Major support for The Joyce
has been provided by Alphawood Foundation, Bloomberg
Philanthropies, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, First Republic Bank, The
Hearst Foundations, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Open Society Foundations
and the Fund for the City of New York, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The
Rockefeller Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and The
Shubert Foundation.
The 2012 national tour of the Jin Xing Dance Theatre Shanghai is part of a major, multi-year cultural exchange with Minneapolis-based Arts Midwest, the Chinese Ministry of Culture, and the US Major University Presenter’s consortium. Support for the tour has been provided by the Ministry of Culture, People’s Republic of China.