MODERN DANCE ODORI. Jueju or Chinese quatrain, is a type of jintishi ("modern form poetry") that grew popular among Chinese poets in the Tang Dynasty. Jueju poems are always quatrains; or, more specifically, a matched pair of couplets, with each line consisting of five or seven syllables. Often involving themes of parting, separation and loss. Comparisons exist with the contemporary global situation of forced migration. Dogwood is customarily worn during ancestor veneration.(Festivals etc.) VOICE: MELODY WANG
ALL VIDEO AND MUSIC BY CHRISTOPHER LAWRIE. PLEASE USE HEADPHONES
These Artworks consist of juxtaposed elements of visual, audio and text. They are not intended to be illustrative of each other.
Modern Dance Odori VIDEO ART/MUSIC JUI JU SUITE
JUE JU SUITE 1. 0N PARTING by Du Mu
Much feeling, but it's just as if there's none,
I think behind my cup, but cannot smile.
The candle has a heart, it too hates parting
In our place, it sheds a tear at dawn.
JUE JU SUITE 2. A SONG OF PURE HAPPINESS by Li Bai
Her robe is a cloud, her face a flower.
Her balcony, glimmering with the bright spring dew,
Is either the tip of earth's Jade Mountain
Or a moon- edged roof of paradise.
JUE JU SUITE 3. THE RIVER IS BLUE by Du Fu
The river's blue, the bird a perfect white.
The mountain green with flowers about to bloom.
I've watched the spring pass away again.
When will I be able to return?
JUE JU SUITE 4. ON THE STORK TOWER by Wang Zihuang
The sun beyond the mountains glows.
The Yellow River seawards flows.
You can enjoy a grander sight.
By climbing to a greater height
JUE JU SUITE 5. QUATRAIN OF SEVEN STEPS by Cao Zhi
People burn the beanstalk to boil beans.
The beans in the pot cry out.
We are born of the selfsame root.
Why should you torment me so much?
The poem was written during the Three Kingdom Period when Cao Pi (brother of Cao Zhi), the Emperor of Wei, was in power. Cao Pi suspected that his brother Cao Zhi was trying to usurp his throne. Consequently, Cao Zhi was summoned to the court and ordered to compose a poem within seven strides so that Cao Pi was convinced of his innocence. Cao Zhi made it, and Cao Pi became so flustered that he spared his brother.
JUE JU SUITE 6. THOUGHTS ON A SILENT NIGHT by Li Bai
Beside my bed a pool of light.
Is it frost on the ground?
I raise my eyes and see the moon.
I lower my head and think of home.
JUE JU SUITE 7. ON A MOUNTAIN HOLIDAY THINKING OF MY BROTHERS IN SHANDONG by Wang Wei
All alone in a foreign land.
I am twice as homesick on this day.
When brothers carry dogwood up the mountain.
Each of them a branch, and my branch missing.
Dogwood is customarily worn during ancestor veneration.(Festivals etc.)
JUE JU SUITE 8. PURE BRIGHTNESS FESTIVAL by Du Mu
At the time of the Pure Brightness festival, the rain is swirling round.
'On the road, the spirit of the traveler is almost broken.
He politely asks at what place an inn can be found?
A shepherd boy points far away to apricot blossom village.
The Qingming or Ching Ming Festival, also known as The Pure Brightness Festival or Tomb-Sweeping Day is a traditional Chinese festival on the first day of the fifth solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. This makes it the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, either 4 or 5 April in a given year.
JUE JU SUITE 9. HOMESICKNESS by Li Gou
People say the setting sun marks the edge of the sky.
I look towards the edge of the sky, but cannot see my home.
Now I hate the blue mountain which parts us from each other.
The blue mountain still is covered by evening cloud.
JUE JU SUITE 10. THE PACIFIC OCEAN IN THE 20TH CENTURY by Li Gou
I’ve finished drinking I’m quitting poetry.
And yet a bird sings.
As it flies across the morning sky.
Toward a newly rising sun.
Liang Qichao (1873–1929) is one of China’s modern thinkers and political activists; among his important contributions was a revolutionising of the study of history. In the depths of the night on which the 19th century turned to the 20th, drinking heavily aboard a steamer traveling from Japan to the United States, he penned “The Pacific Ocean in the 20th Century ."
