YOUTH BALLET TROUPE

Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet was established in 2018 as the first professional youth ballet troupe in China, and the average age is only 15 years old. Based on Liaoning Ballet, Youth Ballet Troupe relies on Liaoning Ballet affiliated Dance School, as well as depends on the scientific, systematic and professional training programme with the target of cultivating excellent young ballet artistic talents, so as to provide a platform of enhancement, demonstration and growth for the future generation of ballet in China by means of “integrating studying and performing”.  

It has successively rehearsed and performed the world classical repertoire “The Nutcracker” and original Chinese ballet suite poem “Four Seasons” prior to rehearsing and performing the large original ballet suite poem “Role Models” in October 2021. Along with well completing study, the members of Youth Ballet Troupe are owning the exclusively precious memories differing from the dance students of same age, and they are demonstrating the Chinese ballet strength of new era with their youth power.

Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet

Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet was established on December 24, 2018 as the first professional youth ballet troupe in China, and the average age is only 15 years old. Based on Liaoning Ballet, Youth Ballet Troupe relies on over 500 students in Liaoning Ballet affiliated Dance School, as well as depends on the scientific, systematic and professional training programme with the target of cultivating excellent young ballet artistic talents, so as to provide a platform of enhancement, demonstration and growth for the future generation of ballet in China by means of “integrating studying and performing”. Youth Ballet Troupe is dedicated to customizing the stage roles for students, creating an exclusive stage for students, enabling the junior students to feel stage and senior students to enjoy stage, so as to love the stage while learning dancing in the future. Since its establishment, Youth Ballet Troupe has rehearsed and performed a number of repertoires and segments of repertoire within three years e.g. the large classic ballet “The Nutcracker”, large contemporary ballet suites poem “Four Seasons”, themed contemporary corps de ballet “The Yellow River”, classic folk ballet “Jasmine Flowers” etc. Regarding rehearsing and performing the large repertoires, it is worth mentioning that it has successively rehearsed and performed the world classical repertoire “The Nutcracker” and original Chinese ballet suite poem “Four Seasons” prior to rehearsing and performing the large original ballet suite poem “Role Models” in October 2021. Along with well completing study, the members of Youth Ballet Troupe are owning the exclusively precious memories differing from the dance students of same age, and they are demonstrating the Chinese ballet strength of new era with their youth power.           

Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet’s Repertoire Creation and Performance

Through researching the recreation of classic ballet repertoire “The Nutcracker”, and the development of repertoires e.g. original ballet suite poem “Four Seasons” and ballet suite poem “Role Models” by Youth Ballet Troupe, we analyze the factors of influencing the talent cultivation mode of Youth Ballet Troupe, and selecting the classic and original repertoires so as to conclude as below:    

Recreation of Classic Ballet Repertoire “The Nutcracker”

Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet has always been dedicated to selecting and cultivating the excellent young ballet dancers with the attitude of exploration and creation. Students of different ages and grades will gain the stage performance experience by participating in the stage practice in this process. On December 24, 2018, Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet made its debut on the date of establishment, the large classic ballet repertoire “The Nutcracker”, under the great support of Liaoning Performance Group (Liaoning Provincial Public Cultural Service Center), as well as relying on Liaoning Ballet and Liaoning Ballet affiliated Dance School, which received a good performance effect. The young dancers were growing rapidly after only one-year establishment regardless of ballet techniques or stage presence. They were making a significant progress, and the repeated rehearsal of ballet repertoire “The Nutcracker” was put on agenda. From repertoire creation, role selection to dance rehearsal, which were all responsible by the teachers of Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet. In order to demonstrate the best effects, enable this repertoire to comply with the national conditions of China and Chinese people’s aesthetic needs, all involved teachers hold the research meeting once every month in the course of almost one-year recreation, striving for presenting this well-known world classic repertoire to the public in the best way. In December 2019, accompanied with the classic music of Tchaikovsky, Liaoning Ballet First Principal Dancers Ao Dingwen and Wang Zhanfeng jointly performed with the young dancers of Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet in Shengjing Grand Theater, receiving a warm applause. This ballet full of childishness and romance attracted the audience of various ages to watch. The audiences said that watching the classic ballets had become an important path of enriching the spiritual and cultural life. It is worth mentioning that the segment “Snowflake” has been completely re-choreographed compared with the previous versions. This ten-minute segment was magnificent without losing the poetic beauty. The crystal clear snowflakes were falling from the sky and dancing with music. It has also laid a solid foundation and provided novel experience for Youth Ballet Troupe to create and choreograph more high-quality repertoires.                 

Original Ballet Suite Poem “Four Seasons” 

“Four Seasons” is a large stage practical training program collaborated between Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet and Shanghai Theatre Academy. “Four Seasons” is a ballet suite poem created by Chen Nian, the Dean of Dance School in Shanghai Theatre Academy. It has won the Gold Prize in the 8^th China Dance “Lotus Award” Ballet - Dance Competition, and Shanghai Excellent Repertoire Prize in 2010 etc. This ballet is composed of four chapters - “Spring”, “Summer”, “Autumn”, “Winter”. It demonstrates the changes of four seasons while reflecting human beings’ spiritual pursuit and exploration between the heaven and earth with interlocking and emergence of artistic conception. It integrates contemporary elements with modern ballet language, displays the classic oriental esthetic in western artistic form. It illustrates four seasons with human life, and corresponds to human life with four seasons. This ballet integrates a number of contemporary dance elements in modern ballet language, enabling student dancers to learn about the basic technique skills of contemporary dance in this course, experience the unique rhythmic beauty of integrating contemporary dance elements and classic ballet, learn to break through the boundaries of movement forms in ballet performance, as well as experience to freedom of expressing real feelings and feel the diversity of dance performance. “Four Seasons” was performed at Zhonghua Theatre on 8^th, 9^th, 19^th October 2019, and the theatre was fully packed for three-day performances. It not only created a good economic benefit for Liaoning Ballet, but also enhanced its reputation, making Liaoning Ballet affiliated Dance School become the recognizable and trustable school by more and more parents and non-professional dance institutions. All artists involved into this creation of Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet planned and initiated this collaboration with Shanghai Theatre Academy. Based on the creation agenda of repertoire, the rehearsal plan was developed at the beginning of March 2019 while the creation team was established, dancers were selected for all segments while the number and list for leading roles, leading and group dancers were determined, and the initial direct communicated was performed. Since March 11^th, the young dancers were formally arranged to rehearse “Four Seasons”. During this periods, Shanghai Theatre Academy’s coaches were invited to guide in rehearsing room and theatre three times. Through the coherent collaboration of rehearsal coaches of Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet and the persistent practicing of young dancers, eventually the ballet suite poem “Four Seasons” with the characteristics of Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet was perfectly presented in October 2019.               

Ballet Suite Poem “Role Models”

It has been one year since the establishment of this project in May 2021. Meanwhile, Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet was creating and rehearsing the ballet suite poem “Role Models”. The feasibility of creation, establishment of creation team, design of movements, script, music, costumes, sets, role selection, facility confirmation, stage rehearsal and formal performance were all constituting the refreshing and direct materials for this project research. The phased achievements were directly applied to the creation and rehearsal of repertoire, which has made a certain success through combining the project research and stage practice. Ballet suite poem “Role Models” is the first large artistic work themed with promoting the spirit of Leifeng after General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech on deeply promoting the revitalization of Northeast China made in Liaoning Province. This work is produced by Liaoning Performance Group and independently performed by the Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet themed with promoting the “Spirit of Leifeng” and celebrating the 20^th CPC National Congress. It is edited by the domestically well-known scriptwriter Li Ming and Dai Hu, and choreographed by Jiang Yang, Dance Director of Hunan Satellite TV’ programme “Dance Storm”. Liu Tingting, creator for works “Jiu Er”, “Waiting”, “Jasmine Flowers” etc., undertakes the Assistant to Choreographer. Guo Sida, an excellent young composer, is responsible for the music. Ren Dongsheng, Yang Donglin, members of creation team for “A Tapestry of A Legendary Land”, undertakes the Sets Designer, Costume and Styling Designer for this work. The overall product is composed of five chapters and demonstrated by means of parallel structure, including “One Beam of Light” “One Seed” “One Drop of Water” “One Piece of Brick” “One Nail”. Combined with applying the performance techniques of classic ballet, neoclassic ballet and contemporary ballet, we present this repertoire from virtual to real in arts, and deeply explore the dance artistic language’s own characteristics through integrating the stage artistic means e.g. stage dispatch, sets design, imagery background etc., so as to establish the stage artistic logic between dance performance subject “teenagers” and learning to inherit the “Spirit of Leifeng”. Since initiating the rehearsal in February 2022, its premiere was completed on March 5th 2022 nationwide. We have also promoted the performance season in Liaoning Grand Theatre. The successful performance of ballet poem has demonstrated the scientificity and feasibility of talent cultivation mode for the Youth Ballet Troupe of Liaoning Ballet.