Photography
Unrequited Love
Wild Dancers
Summer Maze
Unequal Invaders
Design
Basements
Unrequited Love
Huangzi
Beijing Wild Dancers
At an ordinary evening, I passed by the parking lot near my home, I was attracted by a group of middle-aged and old dancers dancing on the square. They were dressed in bright-colored clothes, a yellow haired middle-aged man put on a heavy foundation, he was the leader of the dance group. Dancers seem to be trying to imitate some movements of Latin and jazz , there were strong lights shining from their sides – through the spotlight on the top of an electric tricycle, the lights turn the parking lot into a stage for dancers, and the cars in and out of the parking lot shuttle between their teams, forming a magical scene here.
So I spent more than three months learning about all aspects of the group, and tried to discuss and study them from
clothing, movement, space, public cognition and so on.
The leader with blonde hair is usually called Buddy, he has been dancing here for nine years. He said that he had organized the largest “Buddy happy square” in Beijing, and he led hundreds of nearby residents to carry out square dance. Later they moved to the parking lot after the square was demolished, and there are only 30 people left now.
Square dance is a kind of daily collective activity organized by local people, which is almost popular in all squares of China, the square dance is usually accompanied by music with high decibel and strong rhythm. Most of the participants are middle-aged and elderly women. Because the activity space is mostly on the square, it is named square dance. Because of its characteristics of disturbing people and embarrassing movements, square dance has become a term more and more despised on the Internet. It reflects the contradiction between the urban planning style of modern China and the traditional activity mode of residents after the transformation.
Equipment
Buddy transformed tricycles and made it equipped with lighting and sound equipment. Neon lights were used in front of the car to publicize their groups.Over the years, he spent hundreds of thousands of yuan on lighting and audio equipment.
Aunt Yi in charge of carts in the dance team.
Costume and make-up
Even with the most unique square dance group in China today, the Buddy dance team is definitely the most wild in the whole field.Their team members ranged from 32-year-old female young woman to 72 year old grandmother. All members wore colorful clothes and put confident makeup on, believing that these were a way of respecting their art.
Dancing posture
Usually, in order to achieve the group’s united movements and lower the threshold for amateurs to participate in, the movements of square dance group are often mechanical, monotonous and rigid. In the Buddy team, the members of the Buddy danced jazz, which was almost created by Buddy. He said that he went to dance academy for further study. He made up a dance in three days, and the dancers learned the dance in five days.Buddy told me that according to the expression of music, some dance was used to vent emotions, some were enchanting and used to show femininity.
Field
“We have to be careful, security guard in the parking lot may not allow us to jump.” Buddy is always cautious about avoiding any conflict with anyone to save the dance team’s last activity space. Dancing in the parking lot means that dancers need to put up with endlessly noise made by cars passing through the line.
Conflict is a common phenomenon because of the noise made by square dance and its occupation of public places, some even beat others and throw shit. The per capita sports venues in China are seriously insufficient. The demand of modern cities under high population density is the main challenge faced by city planners. Planners are also lack of reflection about the characteristics of Chinese public activities, they refer to more of Western planning theories, and are more accustomed to considering the needs of young people. Most communities are lack of professional venues that are really demanded by the elderly.
Exhibition site
https://vimeo.com/382961765
https://vimeo.com/382961819
https://vimeo.com/382961879
https://vimeo.com/382961959
Beijing wild dancers1-4#, 2019, Video, 40″
After fully understanding the Buddy dance team, I began to think about how to present so many characteristics and contradictions through my works.
I set up a green background on the dance floor, so that under the premise of the special nature of the Buddy dance team, the dancers would be removed from the real environment and put into different situations through the picture-dig technology. In these four groups of videos, I put the dance pieces into different contents of background, trying to correlate their dancing, dancing venues, public cognition and other aspects with the background content, so as to explore their situation.
Shooting site