Source: CCTV.com
02-24-2009 08:23
Known as a model ballet in China, you could say "White Haired Girl" is bread-and-butter repertory for the Shanghai Ballet. On Saturday night the ballet classic once again moved a packed audience at Beijing's National Center for the Performing Arts.
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| This is one of the most familiar melodies and characters for Chinese. |
This is one of the most familiar melodies and characters for Chinese. The story is about Xi'er, a pretty daughter of a poor family. To pay a family debt, she was sold to the family's despotic landlord. Her suffering forced Xi'er to escape into the deep mountains where her hair turned white without adequate food. Fortunately she was rescued by the People's Liberation Army and reunited with her lover Da Chun.
Premiering in 1965, the "White Haired Girl" was one of the two model ballets. The other one was "The Red Detachment of Women". They were Chinese composers first attempts at melding Chinese folk music with the western performing art.
The folk songs of northeastern China and ethnic dance styles popular in Shaanxi Province are interspersed throughout the ballet.
Though linked to a tragic era, "White Haired Girl" is a crowd pleaser and has been performed with increasing regularity over the past four decades.
