Spring Equinox dance festival is coming to Beijing

The Spring Equinox dance festival, hosted by Beijing Dance/LDTX, offers a stage for Chinese young dancers and choreographers to display their talent.[Photo provided to China Daily]

While Tsao is among the pioneers of modern dance in China, the country has yet to see the development of this art form.

Dancer-choreographer Gong Xingxing, 27, will stage her work Secular Life and Beyond at Spring Equinox 2016.

Having participated in the festival twice after joining Beijing Dance/LDTX in August 2013, Gong has interpreted the idea of "keeping things fresh" in her piece.

"From food to flowers and us, everything seems to decay. How can we keep it fresh? That's what I am talking about in this dance work," says Gong.

Born in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in Northwest China, Gong graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy with a degree in contemporary choreography.

She has gotten together seven male and six female dancers onstage this time, enabling her work to be more layered as compared with her earlier works that largely used single dancers. Gong chose extracts of cello concertos as the background music, which adds both sorrowful and peaceful moods to her dance.

"Like many Chinese dancers, I started with learning traditional Chinese folk dance, which relies on learning old moves instead of creating new ones. I felt nothing inside when I danced until I regained my passion through contemporary dance," says Gong.