Crossing swords with emotion

New work blends dance and fencing to portray resilience

From conception to choreography and rehearsals, modern dancer Hou Ying endured quite an experience while creating her latest work, entitled Disappear.

The piece, which fuses fencing with modern dance, made its Beijing premiere at Tianqiao Performing Arts Center on July 27, as part of the Spring for Chinese Arts Festival.

Hou said that in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she was unable to return from the United States to China. The sounds of ambulance sirens, which she never paid much attention to in the past, distressed her so much that she couldn’t sleep.

“This sound made me feel that the lives of individuals that were once right beside me began to disappear quietly, with or without connections with me,” she said.

“For the first time I felt a sense of helplessness as an individual when facing adversity, and also the estrangement among people, as well as the state of being torn apart.”

About six months later, when she returned to China, Hou began thinking about translating her feelings into physical expressions, and the image of two fencers emerged in her mind as a symbol of confrontation.

“This is a regular sport, but its mask conveys to me a strong symbolic message. Because during that time, I felt that we, humans, have something concealed beneath the surface. We cannot understand it, because the situation we face is completely strange to us,” Hou said.

She initially thought of composing only a duet, and then Shanghai International Arts Festival saw the project and commissioned the dance for her.

Co-produced by Hou Ying Dance Theater and Ming Contemporary Art Museum, the production invited Austrian musician Cornelius Berkowitz as the composer and Dutch artist Kevin Polak to work with sound design.

The dancers started fencing training from scratch in March 2021 with professional coach Tian Yuchuan and referee Liang Jiayue.

The creation process was also unconventional. Unlike her previous works, including Tu Tu and Track, where Hou was very clear about the structure and logic of the piece, she couldn’t use her previous choreography experience in Disappear and gathered inspiration from observing the dancers’ fencing training.

“The moves were inspired by fencing, but fencing training completely changed our ways of movement as dancers. Sometimes in the rehearsal room, I’d ask the dancers to practice some difficult moves and capture some ideas from their physical state,” she said.

The dance moves in this production are based on fencing tactics. The concept of confrontation is shown by two fencers engaging in a bout on a seesaw, trying to advance and attack yet needing to maintain their balance.

Fencing coach Tian said despite having little knowledge of dancing, when Hou found him and told him about the project that incorporates the element of fencing, he immediately decided to offer his support.

“The dancers had no background in fencing. I didn’t expect that she could actually merge fencing with dancing so well within slightly more than a year,” Tian said.

“Dancing is an art form, but fencing is actually a kind of art form, too. Fencing is sometimes described as ‘ballet in combat’. It’s very aesthetically pleasing to watch high-level fencers in competition. But amateurs may not be able to see that,” he added.

“With her choreography, Hou allows the general audience to see the beauty of fencing.”

Although the creation of this dance was not similar to her previous experiences, Hou was able to express the beauty she found in fencing maneuvers in dance form.

“Mystery, eccentricity and fantasy” are keywords she gives to the production.

“This dance is not long, but is enough for me to see the artist’s apprehension, confusion, struggle, awareness, pain and compassion,” veteran dancer and choreographer Shen Peiyi said. “This is created out of sincerity, in which the artist examines the world and humankind. It is sure to offer deep reflection.”