Dancers honor composer

In 1939, composer Xian Xinghai (1905-45) created the legendary Yellow River Cantata, along with poet Guang Weiran. The work fueled patriotism during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).

Premiered in the same year in Yan'an, Shaanxi province, a Communist revolutionary base, the work has been performed for decades by musicians and is still a firm favorite among audiences.

"Whenever the music of Yellow River Cantata is up, we feel the strong emotions and get inspired," says Xiao Xiangrong, a renowned dancer-choreographer.

In 2019, after traveling to the Xian Xinghai Museum in Macao, where the composer was born, Xiao was inspired by Xian's life story and wanted to create a dance drama paying tribute to the composer.

By working with veteran choreographer and scriptwriter Xu Rui, vice-president of the Beijing Dance Academy, Xiao fulfilled his ideas with a new dance drama, titled Xian Xinghai, which will be premiered at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

Coproduced by Ningbo Performance and Arts Group, the dance drama will be staged at the NCPA from Thursday to Dec 22.

"When I visited Xian Xinghai Museum in Macao, I was impressed by his life story. He is a legendary composer who created lots of music during his short lifetime. He was also a man, husband and father, who went through struggles during the time of war," says Xiao.

Born in Macao, Xian traveled to Singapore with his mother, a widowed housemaid. His primary schoolteachers realized his talent and introduced him to the world of music. In 1918, Xian went to Guangzhou to study violin at Sun Yat-sen University and later furthered his study in Beijing and Shanghai before going to the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris in 1930.

"As a student, Xian was poor and he did various jobs to make his ends meet," says Xiao, adding that he learned about Xian's early life from the museum in Macao.

Upon his return to China in 1935, Xian began taking part in patriotic activities and it soon became a central theme in his work. From 1935 to 1940, he composed hundreds of patriotic songs.

In 1938, he married Qian Yunling and a year later, their daughter was born.

In 1940, Xian went to the Soviet Union to work on the music for a documentary about Yan'an and the Eighth Route Army. When war broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1941, the composer was forced to abort his mission and evacuate. He tried to return to China through a route in the southern part of the Soviet Union, today's Kazakhstan, only to find out that the borders were closed. He was left alone in the Kazakh city of Almaty where he knew no one and had no place to stay. It was in Kazakhstan that Xian spent some of his last years till his death in Moscow at the age of 40.Mourning over Xian's death in 1945, Chairman Mao Zedong described the composer as "a musician for the people".

"He wanted to return to his home in China but failed. When I read that he wrote letters to his daughter in China, which were never mailed, I was deeply touched," says Xiao.

"For this dance drama, we try to use modern dance moves to portray the role of Xian Xinghai. Modern dance is an abstract and powerful metaphor, which displays not only a role but also a spirit," says Xu, who wrote the script for the dance drama. He uses three chapters to portray different stages of Xian's life in the dance drama. As he describes, the dance drama is poetic and romantic, rather than simply narrating the life story of Xian.

One of the two dancers who play the role of Xian is Xia Tian, principal dancer of the Ningbo Song and Dance Theater.

"I danced in the piece Yellow River based on Xian's Yellow River Cantata when I was a student at the Beijing Dance Academy, which allowed me to enjoy the composer's music and learn about his story," recalls Xia. "I didn't expect that I would play the role of the composer one day. It's an honor."