New dance era

Ballerina Cao Shuci; Tai Lihua, president of China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe; dancer-choreographer Wang Yabin and dancer Gao Shan at the festival's news conference. The Beijing International Dance Video Festival was launched on Tuesday, and it will be a part of the 12th Beijing International Film Festival, running from Aug 13 to 20. With a theme of "more love", the Beijing International Dance Video Festival will feature six sections, showing audiences how dance has been combined with videos and how the language of dance has been interpreted through the videos. With the development of technology, dance videos have been developed and become a new language to deliver dance works," says Gao, mentioning that two dance works he watched on TV impressed him the most as a young dancer: Spirit of the Peacock, an award-winning work choreographed by Yang Liping, which was inspired by the lithe and graceful hand movements of the bird-related dance of the ethnic Bai people from Yunnan province, and Pina, a dance movie by the iconic dancer-choreographer Pina Bausch and her longtime friend, filmmaker Wim Wenders. However, our artists are so creative that they used cameras to record and show dance works in a way which is very different from tradition," says Pan Yan, secretary-general of China Association of Performing Arts.