Beijing Dance Troupe Takes on Banned Ming Erotica

Beijing Dance Troupe Takes on Banned Ming Erotica

BEIJING — The Experimental Theater of Central Academy of Drama is tucked away in a warren of ancient streets named for goods long ago sold there — Fried Bean Lane and East Cotton Alley — that nowadays are lined with small shops and cafes.

Never easy to find, the theater was particularly forbidding on a frigid evening in late January, when the gate to the entire complex stood locked and guarded, opened only to those in possession of a printed invitation to the event within: a dress rehearsal for the Beijing Dance Theater’s adaptation of “Jin Ping Mei,” or “The Golden Lotus.” The piece will have its premiere this weekend at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, which commissioned it.

The veil of caution that surrounded the rehearsal is par for the course with “Jin Ping Mei,” a Ming dynasty novel usually prefaced with adjectives like “pornographic” and “notorious” that has been banned in China because of its explicit sex by successive governments starting with the Kangxi Emperor in 1687. Its first English translator, Clement Egerton, professed himself acutely embarrassed by the 70 sex scenes, which he rendered in Latin to avoid censorship; its most recent translator, David Tod Roy, faced no such limitations in his masterful translation, but only four of its five volumes have been published. While the bans have limited the book’s circulation, they have done little to stem its popularity; indeed, Kangxi’s own brother spent years translating it into his native Manchu and the book is known to this day as “the fifth classic novel” of the Chinese literary canon.

Creating a production that cannot be performed in China proper, at least as it is currently titled, might seem a questionable strategy for a fledgling private dance company that depends on sponsorship for its existence, and that cites the promotion of modern dance in China and of Chinese culture overseas as goals. It is, however, in keeping with the fierce sense of artistic freedom of the dance troupe’s director, Wang Yuanyuan, and her strong belief in the company’s obligation to make socially relevant works.

At the start of the rehearsal, Ms. Wang, who also choreographed the work, acknowledged the production’s peculiar status.

“It is unfortunate that we won’t be able to perform it here,” she told the invited audience. “But if you have any suggestions for improving it, please give them to me.”

And with that, the house lights dimmed, the music began with an ominous bell chime, and a black and gold curtain rose to reveal a jumble of seemingly nude dancers linked together in a pile of flesh at the center of which danced the anti-hero of “Jin Ping Mei,” the insatiable and corrupt Ximen Qing. When a lone woman — the equally infamous Pan Jinlian — passes by and stops to watch the orgy, she catches Ximen’s attention. He chases her home and they dance a scene of passionate love-making, with Pan refusing to stop even when her benighted husband, the dwarf Wu Dalang, appears at the window. When the enraged Wu enters his home, the couple murder him and Pan runs off to become Ximen’s fifth (but not final) wife, setting the stage for a tale of familial intrigue and debauchery that has enthralled readers for centuries. This tightly choreographed (by Ms. Wang), beautifully designed (by the Oscar-winning Tim Yip), musically rich (composed by Du Wei, with the Paris-based composer Chen Qigang as consultant) and powerfully danced version is also likely to captivate anyone able to see it.

“‘Jin Ping Mei’ was written in the Ming dynasty, in a rotten society,” she said during an interview at her spacious studio. “But the social phenomenon is the same now. People will do anything for money and they want everything quickly — there is no moral concept. If you have money, you’re No. 1.” Read More ...

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