When I decided to get married and have a child
My mother was the most vociferous opponent
She thought my dance career would be affected
But I didn’t agree with her
Why couldn’t I dance after getting married?
Why couldn’t I dance after having a child
Why couldn’t I dance during pregnancy
When I was eight-month-pregnant
I also danced
I want to explore the emotions of life
And even all kinds of desires
I grew up in Guizhou
My parents are both dancers
There was no modern dance in China
I went to Beijing at the age of 16
In 1992
Beijing Dance Academy admitted students for its first class of modern dance choreographers
In the first year, mainly foreign experts taught us
And in the second year, Chinese teachers came
Such as Wang Mei, Zhang Shouhe
And Yingmei from the U.S.A
A year before my graduation
I had a solo dance performance in Guizhou
I danced from 7:30 pm to the midnight
I was the only performer and the dance was totally improvised
Some scholars saw my dance
And they were really excited
They got to know about modern dance
And they found it full of vitality
Many of them cried
Then I had a vocation
Because I found dance could wake up and lead life
When we graduated from the class of modern dance choreographers
In 1995
We found Beijing Modern Dance Company
If we didn’t, the development of modern dance in China would be way behind the current pace
I was really weak
Later accidentally
I had to take responsibility for the (Beijing Modern Dance) company
From 2009 to 2015
We didn’t have a place for training
And we were in lack of fund
I told the dancers
We should learn from the gypsies
We could dance wherever we went
During the vagrancy
I had no choice but to take the dancers to the wild mountains in Guizhou
I told others we were on a trip for inspiration
In fact we had no place to go
We performed The Rite of Spring around the fire with local children
We built a stage in the middle of the river with pebbles
All the villagers were watching us on the opposite side of the river
I choreographed Blooming of Time out of a wish
To make modern dance more popular
I wanted to turn the dialogue between nature and life into a ubiquitous imagination
It should be our most colorful work
And it’s the closest to folk life
Offering
It uses water in different forms as metaphors of life encounters
When we danced in Dunhuang
The dancers wore nothing but skin-colored bodysuit
They danced towards the setting sun
In the endless desert
Multiple layers of sunlight shined on them
The dancers were like the strokes of the nature
They drew a mandala by dancing in the dessert
There was an exhibition of Olafur Eliasson’s works
In Red Brick Art Museum
I was shocked by his works
In a limited space
The combination of light and shadow presented an imagination of the universe
I wanted to dance there
We wouldn’t charge
And we danced in the water for a whole night
We gave a dozen of performances
Each was full of audience
I walked in a big circle of moisture
I got wet from head to toe
Then I tore a ligament in my knee
I danced with crutches and in a wheelchair for the later performances
I’m 45 years old
I’m a virgo
When I was really in hesitation and confusion
The epidemic broke out
Our company failed for numerous times during the epidemic
When the Great Wall was performed for the first time
All our fund was 30,000 yuan
And we still got 300,000 yuan of debt
There’s only one solution to such problems
For me
That is keep dancing
How long will I dance
Till the end of my life