China Diary

Arrival in China
First Performance in Hangzhou
A challenging day in Hangzhou
Two Days in Shanghai
Shanghai to Beijing
First Performance in Beijing
Final Two Days in Beijing

First Performance in Hangzhou

Wednesday 18 January

Another challenging day was had by all!! It started with a distinct lack of technicians from the theatre to assist us with finishing the lighting. Apparently they had been called, and were in the building, but nobody seemed to be able to find them. As always the NBT Technical Staff pulled out all the stops to have everything ready for the Technical Rehearsal. The dancers arrived at the theatre for class with a chilly Siberian wind blowing through the building. The use of a conventional stage door didn’t seem to apply here and meant that access for the company was through one of the scenery get in doors – rather large and excessive for our needs. It also seemed that the heating wasn’t allowed to be switched on before 10am. Fortunately, Class was in a huge rehearsal studio on the third floor of the building, which at least was at a temperature approaching acceptable. The Technical Rehearsal went very well and the dancers coped well with the ridges on the stage surface that protruded through the dance floor. Some not so discreet lines of white tape warned dancers where not to tread!!

Our tour to China is receiving significant sponsorship from the UK and would never have happened without the support of our three sponsors. Tonight was the first event for Yorkshire Forward, and we were honoured that one of their guests was Lv Zushan, the Governor of Zhejiang Province. Our other sponsors are Leeds Metropolitan University and also Arts and Business Yorkshire. Tomorrow night’s event will be hosted by Leeds Met and the pattern will be repeated in the other 2 cities on the tour.

I am happy to say that the dancers gave an excellent performance and it was well received by the near capacity audience. The Governor came on stage during the curtain call to present flowers to the principal dancers and pose for photographs. It was somewhat bizarre to have the curtains still open and a near-empty auditorium by the time the photographers had finished. Fortunately, we had our own photographer on hand to record the scene.

There has been one ongoing saga with our performances in Hangzhou, which has been our failure to convince the venue that we were performing La Traviata and not Madame Butterfly. For months we were contacting them trying to change their website and even up to curtain tonight, the surtitles over the stage were still saying Madame Butterfly. I think maybe they got the message as tonight everything was in Chinese. Not sure what it said though!! The website still probably says Madame Butterfly too!! Another interesting innovation was the ushers that were employed to wander up and down the steps of the auditorium with an array of battery-powered neon signs – in Chinese of course – apparently saying “no photographs” or “no mobile phones” or “no smoking” – as soon as there was a camera flash a neon sign illuminated in response. I have to say the etiquette in the auditorium is very different from our last visit 5 years ago when the audience would constantly wander around the auditorium, make calls, take photographs and talk.

The evening finished very pleasantly with more than half the Company dining together in a very good Chinese restaurant.

Mark Skipper
Northern Ballet Theatre Chief Executive