Art Production Director / Choreography
Interview with Ms. Yuan Jing, Director of Sydney Chinese Dance Company
As the gentle music sounded, the silhouette of a “peacock” gradually emerged, her long dress, as white as snow, clinging to her body obediently. From a distance, wasn’t she a peacock that was not concerned with worldly matters, noble and elegant?
Look, she’s moving, she’s dancing! Her soft waist, flexible fingers, and light feet are dancing to a mysterious realm. Her big eyes are conveying emotions to us; her mouth is opening and closing, sometimes up and sometimes down; the decoration on her bun is standing proudly… Her eyes are full of charm; her small red lips seem to be telling a distant story; her gorgeous and noble bun is announcing the spirit of beauty!
I am ashamed of my crude writing style, which cannot realistically describe the noble beauty I saw. Stunning, this is how I felt after watching Ms. Yuan Jing’s representative work, the solo dance “Peacock”.
Ms. Yuan Jing grew up in a doctor’s family in Shanghai with strict family education and a strong academic atmosphere. She was born with a natural beauty. In her early years, Yuan Jing specialized in folk dance and ballet, and used her spare time to learn English by herself. Later, she was successfully admitted to the Foreign Languages College and became a rare prodigy of that era. Then came an extremely lucrative job – working as a translator for Shenzhen China Ocean Helicopter Company.
At the end of 1986, a romantic and exotic love affair brought the young and capable Yuan Jing to Australia. Being in a foreign country, she deeply felt the importance of mastering English and law as an overseas Chinese. After unremitting efforts and study, Yuan Jing successfully entered the New South Wales Department of Consumer Affairs (now the Fair Trading Commission) three years later. At that time, she also worked in a law firm after work to learn more about professional legal knowledge on commercial law, contract law and fair trading law. Within the Fair Trading Commission, the mediation success rate of cases handled by Yuan Jing is the highest. In addition, she often explains the Australian Fair Trading Law to small business practitioners and institutions such as TAFE. At the same time, she also often enthusiastically helps Chinese merchants and consumers to carefully resolve various disputes.
Although she has become one of the successful Chinese elites in Australia, Ms. Yuan Jing is not only satisfied with her extraordinary career achievements, she also wants to represent the Chinese community to add a touch of color to Australia’s multicultural culture. Under Yuan Jing’s dedicated leadership, the Sydney Chinese Dance Company was born in that unusual September of 2004. As a core leader, she has always taken it as her responsibility to continuously innovate dance programs and enrich the content of performances. To this end, Yuan Jing worked tirelessly and specially became a disciple of a famous Spanish dance expert. After studying for many days, she finally made her dance accomplishment reach a very professional level. When talking about Yuan Jing, the dancer praised her with flattering words: “The emotional world of Spanish dance is too rich. Beginners cannot find the feeling of entry without spending one or two months to feel the emotions of dance. However, Yuan Jing can dance out the original charm and strength of Spanish dance.” And Yuan Jing is exactly the most suitable person to perform Spanish dance. Because one of the major requirements of Spanish dance is “straightness”. No matter how the feet change, the upper body should always remain upright and straight to highlight the lines and show the three-dimensional dynamics.
The “Spanish girl” on the stage lifted up her wide skirt, raised it gracefully, tapped the ground with her soles, heels and toes, then turned left, right and raised her chin! As the music changed, Yuan Jing’s body movements were able to express different emotions: her shoulders turned as if stirring the heart of her lover; her arms circled back to bring back the feelings from afar; she turned around and looked back, raised her chin slightly, and her unsettled seduction slowly revealed itself, and her exaggerated Spanish dance skirt fluttered like waves, gorgeous and intoxicating.
Yuan Jing seems to be able to perform wild and unrestrained typical Western dances effortlessly, and she is also very familiar with traditional oriental folk dances. The representative work of Korean folk dance, “Yellow Fan”, is performed by Yuan Jing, which fully demonstrates the tranquility and freedom of elegant oriental women, as well as their graceful and gentle charm. This “Yellow Fan” dance is the result of Yuan Jing’s many years of dance practice. It not only concentrates on her excellent basic dance skills, but also condenses the great efforts she has put into dance choreography. Yuan Jing introduced: The characteristic of Korean dance is to use the breath to drive the flexion and extension of the knees and the steps, and it runs through the whole body, making the dance present a style of implicitness, flexibility, delicacy, and alternation of movement and stillness, that is, “the inner movement drives the outer movement, there is a line in the movement, and the line is continuous when it is still.” In addition to the “Yellow Fan” dance, “007” modern jazz dance and the large-scale Chinese classical dance drama “Tang Flower Fairy” which premiered at the Parramatta Riverside Theatre on June 1, 2013 are all Yuan Jing’s masterpieces.
Leading such a large dance troupe is no easy task. As a core leader, Yuan Jing not only continuously improves her own artistic accomplishment, but also truly manages the daily management of the dance troupe in every detail, and she arranges every little thing in an orderly manner. A friend praised that when Yuan Jing sits down, she will unconsciously exude the unique orchid-like heart and beautiful appearance and wisdom of Chinese classical women; and when Yuan Jing stands, she shows more of the capable, resolute and unyielding qualities of modern Chinese women, which are high-quality qualities that many men may not have. In order to ensure that every performance of the dance troupe can be of high quality and high standards, all members of the troupe, under the leadership of Yuan Jing, persistently participate in the regular training of the dance troupe every Sunday afternoon. As the saying goes, one minute on stage is ten years of hard work off stage. It is the persistent and hard training that enables the members to continue to bring one wonderful and graceful dance after another to everyone.
Since the establishment of Sydney Chinese Dance Troupe, many touching stories have happened. The beautiful and kind girls have held charity performances several times and actively contributed to charity in Australia and China. In 2011, Yuan Jing and Liang Meiyue, the principal of Sydney Belei Dance School, jointly held a large-scale charity performance “Devotion of Love” with Sydney Chinese Dance Troupe and Sydney Belei Dance School out of their common love and pursuit of dance art, as well as their common concept and selfless love for spreading diversified culture. All the proceeds were donated to Westmead Children’s Hospital to support the welfare of local children in Australia. In early 2009, the dance troupe was invited by the local government to represent Sydney Chinese and Australian professional art troupes to perform for the Victorian forest fires, which was well received by the local government and various communities. On the eve of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the girls of the dance troupe were shocked to hear that a magnitude 8.0 earthquake had occurred in Wenchuan, Sichuan, China. They felt the same and shed tears of grief for the people in the disaster area. Everyone immediately negotiated and decided to classify the large-scale special performance “Dance Dream” originally scheduled to celebrate the successful hosting of the Olympic Games in Beijing as a disaster relief charity performance, and all the proceeds from the performance were donated to the victims of the Wenchuan earthquake to help them rebuild their homes and do their best to help the Chinese in Australia. The dance troupe’s charity was highly praised by the Consulate of the People’s Republic of China in Sydney. At the Christmas performance in 2006, Yuan Jing specially invited the family members of the troupe to watch the performance to thank them for their silent efforts, understanding and support behind the scenes. Yuan Jing excitedly said that it was because of such a group of loving and dedicated good members and good friends that the dance troupe could come to this day. The high spirit of collective assistance and social responsibility of each member is the best guarantee for the success of every performance of the dance troupe!
Ms. Yuan Jing and the members of the dance troupe have presented wonderful performances in various parts of Australia over the years, allowing local people to understand the spiritual outlook of Chinese Australians. As a member of the Chinese community, I would like to sincerely thank the Sydney Chinese Dance Company for its outstanding contributions in promoting cultural and artistic exchanges between local Chinese and various ethnic groups in Australia. At the same time, I sincerely hope that the Sydney Chinese Dance Company can bring more and more wonderful performances to everyone and write a new chapter for the friendship between the Chinese and Australian people!
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