24 hours after the premiere of the new work "Quiet Ground Pick Up" at the Shanghai International Dance Center, dancer Xie Xin took an 11-hour international flight alone in the early morning to Frankfurt, Germany. The tortuous interview was finally completed 2 hours before the plane took off.
One journey has just come to an end, and another has begun. She will spend 45 days writing the novel Timeless for the National Theatre of Hesse, Germany. The epidemic situation in Europe is severe and the international situation is turbulent, but she still pushed off the invitation of a topical variety show in China and resolutely went to Germany.
The last time I went back to choreography at the National Theatre in Hesse, Germany, was the first collaboration on "Special Moments" in 2019. That trip was also a difficult choice for Xie Xin, who had just given birth to her daughter for 42 days when she set out.
From the moment she met Xie Xin, she was always running. The female dancer, who has the iconic short hair, thick lips and 8-pack abs, was still on stage at 8 months pregnant, and quickly returned to her prenatal figure after giving birth, winning the overall title of Dance Storm 2 two years later.
Known as "Brother Xin" and "Great Demon King", she rarely shows her vulnerable side in front of people. But in "Quietly Rising Up", she opened up the "hidden corners" of her heart to the audience. Commissioned by the Shanghai International Dance Center Theater, "Quietly Rising Up", in Xie Xin's view, is "the most honing his own creation in recent years". It tells the theme that has appeared repeatedly in Xie Xin's works- the feeling of time.
Stills from "Quietly Rising Up"
Two hours before the premiere, I was on the side screen watching Xie Xin and the dancers of the Xie Xin Dance Company sit around the dim stage. There were fine beads of sweat on her forehead, and she did not hesitate to discuss the imperfect details of the afternoon rehearsal.
After a while, Xie Xin's mother also came, her long silver hair, painted with light makeup, standing still in the shadows. Xie Xin's three-year-old daughter, wearing a blue puffy skirt, swirled and laughed on the stage, sprinkling scattered white "snowflakes" into the sky one by one.
3-year-old daughter, 36-year-old Xie Xin, 62-year-old mother. In different corners of the stage, they form a triangle, and go up and down in the stage of time, forming a cycle of life.
At 7:15 p.m., the audience entered one after another, and they found that Xie Xin was already on the stage. She lay on a table, as if asleep, with in her hand the diary of her childhood. During the long rehearsal, the diary had long since fallen apart and was repaired. One page reads: Come on, Xie Xin, you can do it.
Before the performance began, Xie Xin was already on the stage
The audience follows Xie Xin's perspective into her memory, feeling the fragmentation, cassette, backwards, and stops of time. In the darkness of the stage, chairs, tables, beds and electric fans, which are common in daily life, slowly rise to create a surreal space.
The scene that moved me the most in "Quiet Recovery" was two people walking straight toward each other. The closer they got, the more they moved away from the powerful impact. Get closer, get farther away, cycle back and forth, hurt each other. With each collision, the audience could clearly hear the crashing sound and violent panting until the two dancers were exhausted and collapsed to the ground.
In the post-performance talk session, under the questions of the audience, Xie Xin lightly mentioned that the original source of "Quiet Recovery" was the painful memory from the original family. "In the past of life, there is always a person who owes you a word of sorry. At the age of 36, I found that there are parts that I once felt were self-consistent, always coming up when I was vulnerable. It turned out that the things in my body that burned me had never been forgotten. I want to heal myself through this work. ”
At the end of the stage, an audience member stood up and shouted at the stage:
"Xie Xin, you are so brave!"
Those knots that have not been unraveled are relieved by a work
Shangguan News: Why is "Quietly Rising" the most tempered your creation in recent years?
Xie Xin: Because my previous works have all started from the logic of abstract image expression and action connection, but this work is based on emotional memory. I want to create a wonderful picture of the alternating reality on the stage, which is actually quite difficult. This work has been lined up for a year and a half, has been deleted in large sections, and has also experienced many moments of self-doubt and contradiction. It is not done at one time, it is completed in one layer, covering the second and third layers on it, and gradually there are levels, distances, and staggering.
Shangguan News: This work is more dramatic than your previous works, is this a turning point in your creation?
Xie Xin: It's not for the sake of deliberate drama, it's because if there's something to say, it has to be said. I feel that each stage of creation has its own inner needs, to complete a stage of growth, to think about what I want to do with my body.
Xie Xin, who is still on the stage at 8 months pregnant
Shangguan News: You said that this work originated from some unraveled knots, mind telling me, what kind of knots?
Xie Xin: It has to do with my parents' experience. When I was 11 years old, my parents divorced, and I didn't mind talking about it because it wasn't an isolated case, it was a very common phenomenon. When I was a child, I was a very sensible child and kept telling my parents that I hoped they wouldn't think about me. But in the process, there will actually be a lot of fragile and difficult memories to let go.
Have you tried it? For a whole month, I was alone at home. Once my parents thought I was asleep and were talking about something very serious there, but I actually heard it. I was even suddenly dragged from school one day, and then I transferred schools and never saw my classmates again.
I felt like my burn was a piping hot ball, and you couldn't give the ball to someone else because you didn't want to make them sad and hurt, so the feeling of being burned will always be in the memory. Those knots that have not been unraveled, I want to use this work to release. I am glad that I have the ability to record my life with my works, and to honestly see myself and people.
Shangguan News: How have these experiences affected your personality and life trajectory?
Xie Xin: Maybe our original family will subtly affect us. When I was most vulnerable, I used to ask my mother why my heart had so much sensitivity, or "material sorrow", and I always saw the hidden side of things and stirred up ripples in my heart.
I don't want to reduce this work to narrow personal memories, I hope it evokes a little empathy from the viewer. Hopefully, in this work, they can see what they feel in their lives, but can't say. In these rising objects and staggered spaces, see your own heart and get a kind of catharsis and relief.
Since you are on the track, you must keep running in rhythm
Shangguan News: A lot of your work is about time. What kind of work will this work "Timeless" be?
Xie Xin: Sometimes, a creator's lifelong work revolves around the same theme, to expand his life experience at each stage. I am the same, maybe not sculpting time, but presenting the experience of life at different stages, showing what I feel in this moment, I want to record the feelings that touch me.
Timeless is a very abstract work. The first half of the performance is the work of the famous Israeli choreographer Sharon Eyal, which is very dignified, dark and powerful. The second half was my work, and the composer Wang Yubo wrote a 34-minute piece of music for me, and the whole work was like an invisible continuous flow of water. This time, it was a big surprise that we were going to use three stages that could be lifted and lowered. On the domestic stage, I don't have a chance to realize such an idea for the time being.
The show features 12 dancers and live symphonies. I want to be able to return to the dance itself, to the body itself. The breath of the whole stage will be flowing, and the grasp between the virtual and the real will be like an ink painting.
Xie Xin with her mother and daughter
Shangguan News: Going to Germany at such a time point should encounter a lot of resistance, why do you still want to go?
Xie Xin: It's a project that has been delayed for two years, and they selected me among three female choreographers they've worked with and are doing everything they can to help me realize my idea. There were very few flights during the epidemic, and in order to be able to make the trip, the theater even did not hesitate to buy me a high-priced return ticket of 90,000 yuan.
So I must go. Although my family and friends were afraid of my danger, none of them advised me not to go because they knew that the things I had decided were something that no one could stop. What I want to do is to arrange the follow-up work of the Xie Xin Dance Troupe, and the next two months will be my own "out of the blue".
Now that you're already on the runway, keep running at a pace. Until one day, hearing the change in my inner rhythm, life may give me more interesting choices and twists.
Shangguan News: See the news that Aurélie Dupont, artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet, invited you to create a work for them. The Paris Opera Ballet is so prestigious that it would invite a modern choreographer to create it?
Xie Xin: The work commissioned by the Paris Opera Ballet will be staged in the 2023-2024 season, and they let me choose the casting and choose the dancers I want. After Aurelee Dupont became artistic director, the company has danced a lot of works by excellent modern dance choreographers. I think this reflects the direction and attitude of a major international ballet company – they want to be diverse, they want their dancers to open their horizons, break boundaries, and constantly explore their bodies, which will also help them to re-understand classical ballet.
Don't envy the 20-year-old body, 30+ has different beauty
Shangguan News: You're 36 years old and still dancing on stage. How has time changed for you?
Xie Xin: Actually, I already feel the changes in my body, which is the normal state of life. One day not long ago, I felt a lot of pain in my waist and walked into the rehearsal hall where our rehearsal director was giving everyone a lesson. I sat down and said that I was particularly envious of everyone's 20-something body. When I was 20 years old, I felt like my body was infinite, and I didn't know where I could reach and what kind of energy I could release.
However, the body in his 30s, who has experienced injuries and fertility, will certainly not have the same physical functions as before, but he will know how to dance in a smarter, more mature, and more measured way. So we don't have to force ourselves to be the same as before, but to feel and make good use of the different thickness of life that the body has at this moment.
I think the measure of dance is not how much force you have to use, not how good your technique is, but how you can use the most real body at the moment to show what you want to say in your heart at this moment. Even if you just raise your eyes, just take a step, even if it's just weakness, just quiet, it's fascinating. Because such a body has layers, there is the temperature and experience of life.
Shangguan News: In the rehearsal hall, I heard a lot of people call you "Brother Xin", do you like this title?
Xie Xin: I'm used to it.
Shangguan News: I think everyone calls you "Brother Xin" because your body has a sense of strength and resilience. Does your personality also have some masculinity?
Xie Xin: Yes. It may be a kind of responsibility and care. I'm really used to taking on more responsibility without being forced. I think that in terms of responsibility, both women and men can do it.
Shangguan News: In the past two years, many fashion brands will find you and your dance company, and I have also seen some people say that Xie Xin has redefined women's beauty to some extent. Do you feel beautiful? What kind of beauty do you want to convey?
Xie Xin: I actually want to know more about this question. If I had to answer, I felt that the beauty I longed for was simple, clean, and focused beauty.
My obsession is theatre. Even if it took a year and a half to create a rehearsal, the performance only happened in one day, it was still worth it for me, because the self-growth behind this year and a half was priceless. I think the return to simplicity is to not think about the cost and the result, to insist on giving and believing in what you are doing. In time, it will take you to a place where no one else can go.
Xie Xin arrived in Germany
Shangguan News: During this time in Germany, what do you think of your daughter?
Xie Xin: Although I know that I will miss her, I will still go out and travel far. I believe that when I leave home, my family will give her enough companionship and security so that I can continue to run.
Shangguan News: What kind of woman do you hope she will become in the future?
Xie Xin: It's up to her to decide.