Shows in capital mark start of a return tour for Martha Graham dancers with Chinese-born top performer, Chen Nan reports.

Prior to Wednesday, it had been about five years since the Martha Graham Dance Company last performed at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. As a way to celebrate the return, the company had two performances on Wednesday and Thursday. These featured three works: Appalachian Spring, Immediate Tragedy and Canticle for Innocent Comedians, which kicked off its China tour.

Following its Beijing stop, the company will visit Shanghai with two shows on Sunday and Monday and Guangzhou on June 16 and 17.

As the oldest American contemporary dance company, it was launched by dancer-choreographer Martha Graham (1894-1991) in 1926.

It has been a world-leading force in the evolving art form of contemporary dance.

Graham choreographed more than 180 dance works and developed a unique technique that is foundational in the study of modern dance. The technique is rooted in the principles of contraction and release, with a strong emphasis on movement from the core and the limbs simply following the core's impulse.

Appalachian Spring was created by Graham in 1944 after a poem titled The Bridge: The Dance by American poet Hart Crane. To the music composed by Aaron Copland, the dance piece was choreographed as World War II in Europe was drawing to an end. It captured the imagination of Americans who were beginning to believe in a prosperous future. Telling the story of a young couple on their wedding day, the dance embodied hope.

Immediate Tragedy was once a lost solo piece choreographed by Graham in 1937, inspired by the Spanish Civil War. The dance was notable and well received, but after Graham stopped performing it in the late 1930s, the piece was forgotten and considered lost. In 2020, Janet Eilber — the current artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company — re-imagined the choreography for Immediate Tragedy by using recently discovered photos of Graham in a performance in 1937, and many other archival references. A new score was created by Christopher Rountree, inspired by pages of music handwritten by composer Henry Cowell, which were found in the Graham archives.

Similar to the situation of Immediate Tragedy, Canticle for Innocent Comedians, which was created by Graham in 1952, taking the title and inspiration from the 1938 poem by Ben Belitt — her old friend and colleague at the Bennington College — was considered lost. The dance work was built around eight virtuosic vignettes for the stars of the company, each celebrating a different element of nature: Sun, Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Moon, Stars and Death/Rebirth. There is only a fragmented record remaining. In 2022, Canticle for Innocent Comedians was re-imagined by the company through a completely new choreography drawing upon Graham's style. The vignettes have been re-made by eight dancers from diverse backgrounds. Fortunately, Graham's staging of Moon was filmed in the 1950s and is included in the new production.

"We've brought some of the most classic works by the great artist to this China tour. We know that the audience have been waiting for a long time for us to return and now it's happening," says Xin Ying, principal dancer of the company, who performs in Immediate Tragedy and Canticle for Innocent Comedians' eighth piece Death/Rebirth.

"When I came to the NCPA for the first time in 2008, the company staged Appalachian Spring and I didn't perform in it. This time, after so many years, I am playing the role of the husband in the same piece," says Lloyd Knight, also a principal dancer of the company now. "I am very excited about this tour in China, especially after such a long time due to the pandemic. It's really happening now."

Both of the two dancers studied historical records and did research about the classic dance works, especially the two lost ones.

"The technique of Martha Graham has been learned and has influenced many dancers worldwide. It keeps growing and transforming into something new because new generations of dancers come up, who practice and use the technique with their own understanding, their own bodies and their own breath," says Knight.

For Xin in particular, the trip back to her home country is very emotional.

"We arrived at the hotel in Beijing during midnight on Tuesday. My mother was there waiting for me. Both of us cried the moment we saw each other. I am finally home," says Xin, adding that the company's tour in China has been postponed over and over again since 2020.

"I brought my daughter back this time, which is her first time to China. She is also very excited because though she was born in the US, I keep telling her stories about China and she is always interested in her home country," she adds. "Every morning when I take her to school, she asks me 'are we going to China now?'"

Born in 1985 in Yichun, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, Xin loved dancing since she was about 5 years old. Her mother supported Xin's passion for dancing and found a teacher in Harbin, sending the then 7-year-old Xin to learn traditional Chinese dance. In 1997, Xin went to receive further training at a dance school in East China's Shandong province. In 2000, she was admitted by the first choreography class in Nanjing University of the Arts, where she learned contemporary dance and became aware of Martha Graham, who is recognized as a primal artistic force of the 20th century, alongside painter Pablo Picasso and composer Igor Stravinsky.

After graduation in 2004, Xin joined the faculty of Sichuan University of Culture and Arts. The massive catastrophe — the magnitude-8 earthquake in Wenchuan on May 12, 2008 — made Xin decide to take a big step. In August 2010, she gained a full scholarship from the Martha Graham School in New York. After another year of hard work and training in all kinds of dance, Xin became a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company. Today, she is the only Chinese dancer with the prestigious company and the first principal dancer of the company from the Chinese mainland.

"Traditional Chinese dance taught me how to move my body and how to use my qi (energy). It also introduced me to the world of traditional Chinese culture, such as calligraphy, ink paintings and traditional Chinese operas, which I love very much," says Xin. "Those also inspired me when I became a contemporary dancer, making me a unique dancer after I joined the Martha Graham Dance Company."

During the pandemic, she gave birth to her daughter and experienced a life without live performances like many artists.

"Giving birth to my daughter is like reinventing myself. I couldn't wait to go back to the stage as a dancer but I had to wait like many other dancers. I was determined to dance again because it would be wrong if my daughter only called me 'mom' and didn't know that her mother is also a dancer. I would miss a big part of me if I couldn't dance again," says Xin.

"In 2021, the company gave an outdoor performance with real audiences. I couldn't be happier," she says. "I am full of energy. I can dance for hours with a few hours of sleep. I really cherish the moments onstage. I don't dance just for the audiences but for myself."

The company is going to celebrate its 100th birthday in three years, and Xin says that it continues to evolve with a new programming vision that showcases masterpieces by Graham alongside newly commissioned works by contemporary artists.

For Xin, besides her role as the principal dancer of the company, she is willing to return to her home country to teach young dancers. She also plans to study at New York University to pursue her master's degree this year.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn