Outbreak delays top choreographer's British debut, but her work still casts an inspirational spell, Chen Nan reports.

A scene from Ripple, by Chinese dancer-choreographer Xie Xin, and performed by UK dance company, BalletBoyz. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

These are changing and challenging times for people. Plans have to be rearranged, new schedules fixed. For those in the entertainment sector, concerts and shows have been put back, penciled in for another date.

Leading contemporary female dancer-choreographer Xie Xin is just one of many rescheduling her life. The COVID-19 outbreak put paid to her plans to travel to London for the premiere of Deluxe, the second half of which would have marked her British debut.

Her 31-minute dance, titled Ripple, performed by the all-male dance company BalletBoyz, follows the first half of the production, Bradley 4:18, which highlights the work of British choreographer Maxine Doyle.

The collaboration started in September 2018 when Xie was three months pregnant. She flew to the United Kingdom for rehearsals with BalletBoyz that December. Last October, seven months after giving birth to her daughter, Xie went to London again to finish the piece.

"It was part of my pregnancy and grew with my transition into a mother, which means a lot to me personally," says Xie, who works and lives in Shanghai.

Celebrating BalletBoyz's 20th anniversary, Deluxe was scheduled to tour Britain from March to May with 19 shows, including three shows at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre, from March 25 to 27. However, the tour was canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Sadler's Wells, the world's leading dance venue, decided to premiere Deluxe on its Facebook page on March 27 as the first video of the theater's Facebook Premieres series, where it was available to watch for one week. The production will also have its TV premiere on BBC Four, with details still to be announced.

"As kids, we love to watch the effect of a stone thrown into the water, making ripples that are perfectly circular and expanding. It's a bit of magic. The same can be said of the circular movement and the continuous flow of this piece," commented audience member Monica Pini on the theater's Facebook account.

"Away from the mess of modern masculinity, Shanghai-based choreographer Xie Xin takes the troupe into a softer domain with Ripple, harnessing muscular energy into spools of beautifully billowing sequential motion," said a review in weekly British entertainment newspaper The Stage.

A pregnant Xie (center) and her colleagues pose with the BalletBoyz in 2018. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

"There's a sinuous and flexible quality to Jiang Shaofeng's score too," it adds.

For Xie, Ripple explores movement inspired by the memory of a person and the flow of energy, which is "passive, natural and out of control".

She also invited Chinese tap dancer and her longtime collaborator Jiang to compose for the piece. The string instruments Jiang employs create a space of intensity and harmony.

By working with all-male dancers, Xie found it challenging and inspiring.

Her new role as a mother led Xie to focus on a deeper side of her personality, than ever before, she says.

"The strength of male dancers is different from female dancers. I tried to find a different dance vocabulary for the male dancers when they dance, pas de deux or in a group," Xie says.

Artistic director and co-founder of the BalletBoyz, William Trevitt, who first met Xie during the company's 2018 tour to Shanghai, has nothing but praise for her work.

"We think it's a great piece to perform and to have as part of our repertoire," Trevitt says. "We've often been known for doing quite athletic and strength-oriented work, but Ripple is much more fluid and lyrical throughout.

"It's all about the quality of movement that the dancers can achieve, so it's incredibly compelling to watch, because it's so physical and extraordinary. It's a very beautiful piece."

At their first meeting, they spent a day in Xie's studio in Shanghai with the dancers, conducting a workshop, improvising and just experimenting.

In 2000, former dancers of the Royal Ballet, Trevitt and Michael Nunn, launched BalletBoyz, which has established itself as one of the most original and innovative forces in modern dance.

Xie helps a dancer find the right form during a rehearsal in London last year. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

According to Nunn and Trevitt, the company canceled 27 performances at 24 venues throughout Britain because of the coronavirus. They are looking at re-booking some of the venues for a UK autumn tour and they are also exploring different options to bring the show, Deluxe, to China.

Xie is working on her new piece, titled Touching, which is inspired by her experience during the outbreak.

In early January, she toured as a dancer with the dance drama, titled The Hotel, choreographed by Li Xing, and visited cities in Hubei province, such as Wuhan and Huanggang. On Jan 21, she had a fever and the second day, her 10-month-old daughter also had a fever.

"I was devastated because all the symptoms were similar to that of COVID-19. I was very scared and nervous," recalls Xie, who went to the hospital and was told it was just the flu. Fortunately, her baby also tested negative for the coronavirus.

"It was such a relief for me. I didn't expect that I could be so fragile. Motherhood changed me somehow," Xie says. "I couldn't help thinking of people who were infected. They suffered from the disease physically and mentally. When I watched news on TV, I was heartbroken because people were dying every day as a result of the virus. They didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to their families."

Born in 1985 in Ji'an, Jiangxi province, Xie learned traditional Chinese dance from her mother. In the beginning, she didn't want to become a dancer, but was later drawn to the idea of expressing herself with body movements. In 2004, she graduated as a contemporary dancer from the Guangdong Dance School and has worked with contemporary dance theaters that include Guangdong Modern Dance Company, Jin Xing Dance Theater and Beijing Dance LDTX.

In 2014, she founded her own theater, Xie Xin Dance Theater. As a choreographer, Xie has won a number of awards, including the gold award at the 14th International Dance Competition in Rome, Italy in 2015, and the gold award at the Seoul International Dance Competition in 2016 in South Korea.

While hunkering down at home in the face of COVID-19, Xie found a rapt audience on social media. She has been sharing videos of her doing exercises at home. One of her videos has been watched more than 1.4 million times.

"I work out every day. I didn't expect that I could reach out to so many people on social media," says Xie.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn