Shanghai residency fosters Asia-Europe artists' collaboration

Artists from Germany, China and the UK developed a collaborative dance performance which was presented at Beijing's Rockbund Art Museum. The European visual artist and dance professionals began their collaboration when they met on a residency at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, and brings together interests and experiences they have had in China over many years.

The dance performance, “Two Figures in a Landscape,” uses costumes designed by the British artist Jonathan Baldock. This and “Xingfu / Happiness” have been choreographed for the occasion by Jutta Hell and Dieter Baumann of the Berlin-based Rubato Dance Company and Li Lingxi, a freelance choreographer from China.

The performers intended “to research the cultural impact of classical Chinese dance and professional folk dance and [to look at] how these dance forms are connected or not connected to contemporary Chinese life” .

Baldock first travelled to China in 2011, to work on a research project at the Sichuan Fine Art Institute in Chongqing, where he encountered Sichuan opera. The London-trained artist, who works with imagery and decorative elements that draw from the character and dress of the clown in its various guises across history, was immediately entranced by the performative art.

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Image: Courtesy Jonathan Baldock | Li Lixing and Dieter Baumann perform in costumes designed by Jonathan Baldock in Shanghai