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The Red Dress

The Red Dress

The Chinese National Award-winning dance drama
Performed by China Ningbo Performance & Arts Group

State Theatre, Sydney
Wednesday 4 March and Thursday 5 March at 7.30pm

China Arts and Entertainment Group (CAEG) presents the Chinese National Award-winning dance drama The Red Dress at the State Theatre Sydney on Wednesday 4 March & Thursday 5 March.

The Red Dress tells the touching love story of a young man and woman from two rich families in an ancient town in southern China. Sweethearts since they were young, they fall in love and then move apart. The promise of marriage makes the beautiful bride-to-be wait for years with her dream of a red wedding dress.

Through the unique Chinese folk dance language—with a combination of southern China’s folk customs such as “Daughter’s Wine” of Shaoxing, “Descendants’ Bucket” of Ningbo, “Rolling Silkworms” of Jiaxing, and others—the production presents this most cherished ceremony of a southern Chinese girl’s life, and paints a vivid picture of the special wedding customs of southern China. It conveys the grandness and exquisiteness of China’s folk culture, as well as the dream and pursuit of the Chinese for peace and happiness.

Since its debut at Ningbo Grand Theatre The Red Dress has been performed around the world including New York, Hong Kong and Shanghai. When it was performed in Shanghai, the company received and unprecedented six curtain calls with the audience refusing to leave. In Hong Kong, the box office of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre put up the seldom seen “full house” sign. It has won the 11th National Spiritual Civilization Five Top Project Prize, and the Excellent Repertoire Award of the Seventh China Dance Lotus Award. CAEG proudly presented The Red Dress in David H. Koch Theatre, Lincoln Centre of New York in 2014 and won a full success.

The Red Dress is performed by China Ningbo Performance & Arts Group. China Ningbo Performance & Arts Group combines art creation, production, performance, talent cultivation and market development, and insists the idea of “building a brand with high-quality productions, empowering the strength with industrial development”. Through the “Natural Stage” season and “Week of Ningbo Culture”, the group has shown the cultures and customs of Ningbo to audience at home and abroad. The group has toured in France, US, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Madagascar and Chinese Taiwan and Hong Kong for performing or cultural exchange, wining high praises.

The Red Dress stars Cheng Lin (Yue’er) and Zeng Ming (A’yong). Cheng Lin (Yue’er) graduated from the Classic Dance Performance Department of Beijing Dance Academy and now works for China Ningbo Performance & Arts Group. Her major works include acrobatic dance Undersea World, dance piece Always Prosperous, pas de deux Love of Butterfly and Root, solo dance Ode to Lotus, with which she won the Second Prize of the Young Dancers Techniques and Skills Competition. And she also won the Third Prize of the 8th Zhejiang Music and Dance Festival with the dance piece Awakening of Insects.
Zeng Ming (A’yong) graduated from Beijing Dance Academy and now works for Chinese Oriental Song and Dance Troupe. He has won such honors as Bronze Award in the category of classic dance of the 8th National “Peaches and Plums Cup” Dance Competition, Second Prize of the 7th National Dance Competition, Best Performance Award of the 4th CCTV Television Dance Competition, Second Prize of the Outstanding Dancers Competition of Jiangxi Province. His major works include dance drama Xi Shi with leading role of King Wu, Hakka House with leading role of Tianshu.

“Following its remarkable engagements of Wind of Colorful Guizhou (2012), The Peony Pavilion (2013) and The Embroidery Girl (2014) in State Theatre, CAEG will proudly to present a national award-wining dance drama The Red Dress in State Theatre in 2015. Themed with love, The Red Dress won the 7th China Dance Lotus Award, the most prestigious dance award in China. CAEG presented its world premiere in Lincoln Centre (New York) in 2014. The touching story of love, wedding and skillful dance made a hit in New York. A life-time waiting love story to be told for Sydney. March 4-5, State Theatre, TWO Performances only,” said Zhang Yu, president of CAEG.

China Arts and Entertainment Group (CAEG), established in April 2004, is the first large state-owned cultural enterprise in China, with the State Council as its investor, the Ministry of Culture as its administrative director and the Ministry of Finance as the property operation supervisor. It was inaugurated after the merger of the China Performing Arts Agency (CPAA) and the China International Exhibition Agency (CIEA), two entities directly under the auspice of the Ministry of Culture. With offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Lanzhou, Xiamen, Jinan and Xining, CAEG consists of 25 wholly owned enterprises including CPAA and CIEA, together with a number of other holding subsidiaries. As CAEG’s core companies, both CPAA and CIEA have gained international acclaim by undertaking thousands of governmental cultural exchange projects and commercial stage performances and arts exhibitions. Now CAEG includes 8 affiliated grand theatres and 43 partner theatres covering 4,500 shows annually and 3.5 million audiences per year in 23 provinces of China. And its overseas tour has covered more than 300 cities of nearly 50 countries around the world. In addition, CAEG also established and runs the second largest professional ticketing operation in China covering over 50 cities, 3,000 ticket sales partners.

The Red Dress
Venue: The State Theatre, 49 Market Street, Sydney
Dates & Times: Wednesday 4 March & Thursday 5 March at 7.30pm
Tickets: $30 – $70
Bookings: http://www.ticketmaster.com.au

When

4th March 2015 07:30 pm
To 5th March 2015 09:30 pm

Where

The State Theatre
49 Market Street
Sydney 2000