Washingtonians wrap up China tour in Hangzhou 1
Tonight in Hangzhou, the historic resort city on the West Lake, now a bastion of high-tech industry: the final performance of the three-week tour of Central China by Lula Washington Dance Theatre. Mid-way through the itinerary, in the dusty back stairwell of a Henan province (Xinyang) theater, Keith Lommel, cultural attache at the U.S. Embassy ...
Lula Washington kicks it in Xinyang City with Rennie Harris’s fabulous REIGN
Jun
11
2011
Hip-hop and house dance hit Henan Province hard last week. Lula Washington Dance Theatre kills in this blistering piece created for them by choreographer Rennie Harris. If you live in China where the government blocks youtube.com, view it here. video courtesy u.s. embassy in beijing, keith lommel, videographer, translator, china hand, sound mixer
Jiaxing party animals. Yes, *that* Party.
Arriving in Jiaxing, we remember our Chinese Communist Party (CCP) history. The party was founded under the guiding eye of Comintern agent, Grigori Voitinsky, in Shanghai’s French concession. It was July, 1921 — China’s summer of love. The first party congress had 53 attendees. Immediately feeling the heat from the Kuomintang authorities, the group transferred ...
Letter from Wuhan 1
Jun
9
2011
Greetings from Wuhan, one of China’s “four furnaces.” It’s a hot one today, blazingly sticky and humid; for every particle of air, an equivalent particle of dirt. The dancers already had class and rehearsal and are hanging out, resting, before tonight’s show. Wuhan is a big old-industry town in the heartland of China, a bastion ...
Micah Moch flies in Rennie Harris’s “Reign” in Luohe, P.R.C.
Jun
8
2011
Micah in the middle. Photo courtesy Keith Lommel, U.S. Embassy in Beijing
Where the heck are we in Henan Province? We’re in Xinyang. 3
Jun
5
2011
At the close of Day 18 of a 25-day performance tour through four provinces of China, we find ourselves in a netherworld of time and space. No one on the bus can remember what day of the week it is — or where we are. The daily drill goes like this: In the morning, after ...
South Los Angeles dance warriors visit Shaolin Temple monks
Jun
4
2011
A tribe of urban warriors — skipping, leaping, jumping and hip-hopping their way across Henan Province — scaled the hills of Shaolin to visit the local Buddhist monastery.
Cultures collide, collaborate, in Xucheng, P.R.C.
Jun
2
2011
Lula Washington & Chinese colleagues and hosts In the arts funding world, they call it “cultural exchange.” In the real world, we call it the love and mutual respect that flows between artists. Here, where the bare foot meets the marley floor, artists mash up and collaborate. Two Chinese choreographers, Ma Bin from Hainan Island ...
Lula Washington Dance Theatre superb in Zhengzhou 6
There was no better place to be on earth — not New York, not Paris, not London, nor Beijing. All of the action tonight was at a Roman-style outdoor amphitheater one hour outside Zhengzhou, PRC. That’s the capitol city of Henan Province (pop: 94 million). There, at SIAS University, the 13 dancers of Lula Washington ...
Train to Zhengzhou for Lula Washington Dance Theatre 1
May
26
2011
The only booties that were not shaking after Lula Washington Dance Theatre’s visit to Xian (she-yan) were those of the 3,000-year-old terracotta warriors. The lively, Los Angeles-based, African-American dance troupe performed in Xi’an twice, both times to about 1,000 people. Everybody got all shook up. But the stony warriors proved impervious to modern dance. Here ...