Theater group uses panda tracks to find its way through Chinese history

Two dancers take on the role of explorers and navigate an interactive set where children are welcome to participate and play

Two Italian explorers follow the footprints left by a panda and venture into the culture and history of China. This is the story being told in Panda's Home by Italian visual theater group TPO.

The show, which premiered in Prato, Tuscany, in Italy in September 2016, where TPO is based, will be staged in Beijing from March 24 to April 2. In January and February this year, the show was staged in France and Sweden.

The show also has been booked by the New Victory Theater in New York for June 2018.

Children are continuously encouraged to participate and play with TPO's interactive set. Photos Provided to China Daily

 

"The work was appreciated (by Western audiences) because of the devices we used in the show: dance, pictures, sound and obviously, our interactive and immersive theatrical environment. But for us the true premiere will be the one that we will present in Beijing. We look forward to confronting a Chinese audience," says Francesco Gandi, the artistic director of TPO, an award-winning children theater company founded in 1981 and which is devoted to creating works that are highly visual and multidisciplinary using music, dance, art, sculpture, digital media and sound.

Gandi, along with Davide Venturini, the co-director of Panda's Home, became the artistic directors of TPO in 1999.

Interactive set

The show leads audiences through a sensory journey into theatrical environments.

With two dancers, Luca Tomao and Martina Gregori, and Massimiliano Fierli and Francesco Taddei as engineers, the children are continuously encouraged to participate and play with TPO's interactive set.

"From a panda's point of view, we interpret this story using dance and visual effects. Through the journey, they encounter how the elements of nature are related to each other according to a circular movement," says Gandi, referring to the theory of the Five Elements where each element is transformed and generates the next one: wood, fire, earth, metal and water.

Like the two Italian explorers in the show, Gandi and his team also learned a lot about China through the process of producing it.

Their Chinese partner, Ren Lizhu, and Ren's company, TONG, brought TPO to China for the first time in 2015 with TPO's show, titled The Painted Garden.

According to Ren, TPO's works involve lots of interaction with children, and thus the performances are suitable for smaller venues, which have a capacity of around 80 to 150, or 30 to 50 families.

"The Painted Garden was staged for three weeks in Beijing with 28 shows. To our surprise, all the shows were sold out, which gave us confidence about doing more immersive theatrical productions," says Ren.

Ren also says that after each show of The Painted Garden, the audiences were invited to participate in a workshop, which had children paint what they saw in the show.

"The workshop mirrored the children's creativity. Some of them drew the big ocean they saw onstage, while some drew the two dancers in the show with detailed portrayals, such as their curly, long hair. One of the children even painted the spotlight over his head," says Ren.

For Panda's Home, workshops will be held after each performance.

Choreographical challenge

As for how Panda's Home came about, it was Ren who proposed the idea of producing a show based on traditional Chinese culture to Gandi.

Explaining her idea, Ren, who is the mother of a 4-year-old boy, says: "Most Chinese parents teach their children English and Western instruments, such as the violin and the piano. However, Chinese culture is often ignored. We take it for granted that we know it because we are Chinese. But it is not true. Chinese culture is profound and has a long history, which deserves to be valued more."

A Beijing native, Ren, 36, graduated with a master's degree in marketing from the University of Leicester, and founded her company, TONG, in early 2015, meaning "children" in Chinese.

It also stands for "To Our Next Generation", and is devoted to importing and producing children's theater.

As for the proposal, Gandi did not reply Ren for three months because he spent that time researching and learning about Chinese culture, and when Ren flew to Italy to visit Gandi at TPO's headquarters in October 2016, she was surprised to see that Gandi's studio was filled of books and pictures about China.

As coproduction partner, Ren then helped develop the script for Panda's Home.

Speaking about the project, Gandi, who brought another show, titled Kindur, to Beijing in 2016, says: "We then saw how interesting it would be to do a work as tribute to Chinese culture. So, we started to think of how we could do a project for the young and at the same time do interactive dance theater."

For TPO, the main task with Panda's Home is to fill the gap between the young audience, the contemporary world and Chinese traditions.

So they use the panda, the Great Wall, lanterns, bamboo, and kites in the show.

The music involves traditional Chinese instruments, such as the flute, the guqin (a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument) and the bianzhong (an ancient Chinese musical instrument consisting of a set of bronze bells).

"The choreography was a challenge because we belong to another culture. But Ren helped us a lot. Finally, we found a good balance," says Gandi.

"Potentially, China represents an incredible resource for European artists, especially those who are able to share experiences and practices."

chennan@chinadaily.com.cn