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Danscross: Dancing in a shaking world (a large international collaborative dance project)

Danscross was conceived, curated and directed by Professor Christopher Bannerman and Associate Professor Xu Rui. It involved four creative processes each featuring a Western and Chinese choreographer observed by Western and Chinese academics. The eight choreographers worked with Beijing Dance Academy (BDA) dancers specialising in Chinese classical and folk dance forms. Their repertoire comprised theatricalised presentations designed to project 'Chineseness', despite Russian-inspired training, resulting in work that to Western eyes often appears balletic in structure and mode of representation.

Building on ResCen's expertise in documenting artistic process, the project was designed with multiple aims: some real-world, others more traditional research concerns. Bannerman’s aims included how to:

- observe and understand choreographic processes and products in post-Olympic China, when key assumptions of Western intercultural performance researchers (Pavis et al) had arguably been upended;

- understand the historic and current practices and influences that have shaped Chinese theatre dance;

- construct a literal and metaphorical space to enable 'ethical, historically aware, and politically challenging debate' (O'Shea);

- understand national and cultural identity/ies as they manifest in process and product, in dance and more widely;

- apply a self-reflexive awareness to identify the forces and processes that have shaped our perceptions of art, dance and China;

- understand a world of multiple modernities after centuries of western dominance (ref GK Bhambra).

Further, Xu Rui’s aims included: modernising and internationalising the repertoire, knowledge and skills of the BDA dancers; locating contemporary dance within large-scale mainstream dance culture; promoting socially relevant and challenging themes; bringing new research methodologies to Chinese academics, and locating them in dance studios to work in teams as opposed to traditional solitary research modes.

This large and complex project resulted in performances in Beijing's largest professional dance theatre, and in a website and journal publication featuring articles by Western and Chinese academics.