All of last week, on top of teaching workshops to the Beijing No. 4 students, Jen, Sonia, and I were also collaborating with local noteworthy dancers. With these dancers, we had to choreograph a piece and learn it for a performance, which was held this past Sunday. The piece was centered on the merging of eastern and western culture and featured a multitude of styles including salsa, ballet, contemporary, and traditional Chinese dance. Everyday after classes with the high school students ended, we would dance for at least an hour and a half in order to prepare this piece for the upcoming performance. The performance was held in a local arts museum as part of a recent exhibit to demonstrate the growth of individuality and worldliness of China’s youth. Along with this choreographed piece, we also demonstrated what we taught to the high school students at No. 4, showing how the arts can be incorporated into various disciplines. All the performances in the end did pretty well, especially the choreographed piece. I actually just saw a video of it and was fairly impressed. The demonstrations of our workshops were a little awkward (simply because the audience wasn’t really aware of what our program was about), but that’s not a big deal. It was also amazing seeing other dancers perform. Nancy, a friend from our group piece, performed two other phenomenal pieces. One was tai chi and the other was traditional Chinese dance. We were blown away by her talent (like always). Another two artists (can’t remember their names) performed, one modern and one a sort of soft popping hip hop, and were incredible too. I was really impressed by the talent at the exhibit.
Last year, Sonia and I were in Zhuhai, Guangdong for two months where we taught English to middle school students. We had an amazing experience and fell in love with our students. Two of the students, Sherry and Sunny, decided to surprise us by coming to Beijing to visit. To say we were excited would be a total understatement. Because the kids were here, we decided to explore Beijing more, especially because we actually had time for it now. We were able to show them Sanlitun and the Temple of Heaven. It was my second time seeing these areas, but they still impressed me so much. The juxtaposition of the architecture and cultures of the modern, innovative, metropolitan area of Sanlitun next to the traditional, rich, and elaborate Temple of Heaven is incredible. It is astonishing to see how far this country has come in such a short amount of time. We had an awesome time in both areas. I’ll upload some pictures soon. There are still a bunch of places we want to see while here. I hope we get the time!