Wen Hui’s new work I am 60 focuses on the body and aging. After extensive research and rehearsals in France and China, this solo will be premiered at KUNSTFEST WEIMAR. In 1994, the famous choreographer co-founded LIVING DANCE STUDIO, China’s first independent dance company. To mark her upcoming 60th birthday, she reflects in the piece on the realisation of how, in her own words, “over time, our bodies become our battle-ground”.
As a child of the Cultural Revolution and having grown up with the Mao quote “women hold up half of the sky”, I am 60, she says, is an attempt to “use my own body to forge a new path between the past and our present”. This is reflected in the project’s three different research levels: besides questioning her own family history, she conducted a series of interviews with young women about their struggle for empowerment in modern Chinese society. She also pays tribute to the roots of feminism in the Chinese cinema of the thirties. What remains of the ‘new woman’ proclaimed back then in today’s world? Where are the Chinese pioneers of feminism? Wen Hui has developed a multimedia documentary project that puts her own body into context with historical and contemporary film and sound clips, text projections and recitations — all in dialogue with the audience.
Wen Hui is one of this year’s winners of the GOETHE-INSTITUT’s prestigious Goethe Medal.
CHOREOGRAPHY & DANCE — Wen Hui
DRAMATURGY & CONSULTING — Zhang Zhen
MUSIC — Wen Luyuan
VIDEO — Rémi Crépeau | Zhou Xueping
LIGHTS & STAGE MANAGEMENT — Romain de Lagarde
PRODUCTION — Living Dance Studio
CO-PRODUCTION — Théâtre de la Ville | Festival d‘automne à Paris
CO-PRODUCTION — KUNSTFEST WEIMAR c GOETHE-INSTITUT E. V.
SUPPORT — Théâtre de la Ville — Les Abbesses, Paris
FUNDING — Residenzprogramm des Institut francais an der Cité internationale des arts, Paris | Institut francais, China | Französische Botschaft in China | micadanses-Paris | CND Centre national de la danse, Paris
