Song Dynasty poet is star of new stage production

Dongpo: Life in Poems, premiered in Shanghai this July, was performed in Chengdu, Sichuan province, last weekend, and will be performed in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, on Friday and Saturday.

Feedback has been varied. Some theatergoers have been wowed by the production, saying that they had never seen anything like it before, while others have said that the production was challenging for them to understand.

"I was prepared for the different reactions. I hope that people will keep an open mind about art. It's like listening to a bird singing or smelling the fragrance of flowers, a very personal experience," Shen says.

"What I hope people gain from my work is a glimpse of the beauty of Chinese culture, and to be able to engage in a sense of the unknown. Researching Su Dongpo and the Song Dynasty was like a process of decoding the past. I want the audience to do the same when they watch the production, and decode the information I put in it about Su."

Over the course of his decadeslong career, Shen has made a name on the international dance scene for his lyrical, visually alluring contemporary productions infused with Eastern and Western sensibilities.

His passion for Chinese history and culture dates back to childhood. Born in Hunan province in 1968 to Chinese opera professionals, he trained from a young age in the rigorous practice of Chinese opera, ink painting and calligraphy, and was a performer with a Hunan art troupe between 1984 and 1989.

In 1989, he began to study contemporary dance in the American Dance Festival program at the Guangdong Dance Academy. In 1992, he became a founding member of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company, the country's first contemporary dance company.

In 1994, he won first prize for choreography and performance at a national modern dance competition, and then moved to New York on a scholarship from the Nikolais/Louis Dance Theater Lab.

In the 1990s, Shen turned his attention to filmmaking, while continuing to pursue dance theory, choreography and painting, and, in 2000, founded his own company, New York-based Shen Wei Dance Arts.

Last year, he was honored with an American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement.

The China Oriental Performing Arts Group plans to stage Dongpo: Life in Poems at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC next March. Dancers from Shen Wei Dance Arts will also participate.

"We might not always understand different cultures, but we can appreciate performance, and we can appreciate art. That's the beauty of movement. And that's the beauty of dance," he says.