Dance of hope

Sadler's Wells, the world's leading dance venue, decided to premiere Deluxe on its Facebook page on March 27 as the first video of the theater's Facebook Premieres series, where it was available to watch for one week. The production will also have its TV premiere on BBC Four, with details still to be announced.

"As kids, we love to watch the effect of a stone thrown into the water, making ripples that are perfectly circular and expanding. It's a bit of magic. The same can be said of the circular movement and the continuous flow of this piece," commented audience member Monica Pini on the theater's Facebook account.

"Away from the mess of modern masculinity, Shanghai-based choreographer Xie Xin takes the troupe into a softer domain with Ripple, harnessing muscular energy into spools of beautifully billowing sequential motion," said a review in weekly British entertainment newspaper The Stage.

"There's a sinuous and flexible quality to Jiang Shaofeng's score too," it adds.

For Xie, Ripple explores movement inspired by the memory of a person and the flow of energy, which is "passive, natural and out of control".

She also invited Chinese tap dancer and her longtime collaborator Jiang to compose for the piece. The string instruments Jiang employs create a space of intensity and harmony.

By working with all-male dancers, Xie found it challenging and inspiring.

Her new role as a mother led Xie to focus on a deeper side of her personality, than ever before, she says.

"The strength of male dancers is different from female dancers. I tried to find a different dance vocabulary for the male dancers when they dance, pas de deux or in a group," Xie says.

Artistic director and co-founder of the BalletBoyz, William Trevitt, who first met Xie during the company's 2018 tour to Shanghai, has nothing but praise for her work.

"We think it's a great piece to perform and to have as part of our repertoire," Trevitt says. "We've often been known for doing quite athletic and strength-oriented work, but Ripple is much more fluid and lyrical throughout.

"It's all about the quality of movement that the dancers can achieve, so it's incredibly compelling to watch, because it's so physical and extraordinary. It's a very beautiful piece."

At their first meeting, they spent a day in Xie's studio in Shanghai with the dancers, conducting a workshop, improvising and just experimenting.

In 2000, former dancers of the Royal Ballet, Trevitt and Michael Nunn, launched BalletBoyz, which has established itself as one of the most original and innovative forces in modern dance.