Dance festival connects people through exchanges: UK choreographer

Dancers from the most renowned troupes in the world performed by the seaside in Qinhuangdao, North China's Hebei Province for the Move to Move International Dance Festival, which ran from Sunday to Tuesday during this year's Mid-Autumn Festival holidays.     

For choreographer Paul Lightfoot, the festival marked the debut of his experimental work with Chinese dancers for the Specially Commissioned Co-creation section at Aranya, a well-known artistic community. 

"I've never had this opportunity to work with Chinese dancers," Lightfoot, former artistic director of Nederlands Dans Theater (Netherlands Dance Theater), told the Global Times. 

"For me, this has been the most beautiful part of this festival. Personally, it is the exchange you see because I could really share the things that I do in the ways I think and the ethics and the ideas and the imagination with them."

Chinese dancers are quite young when it comes to cultural exchanges and they "are one of the best casts I have ever seen. We've had a fantastic journey together."

At the invitation of the festival's founders, Yin Fang and Wu Mengke, the Englishman brought his idea about something "50 percent about the ballet and 50 percent about ethics" to the stage at Aranya.  

"So we talk a lot and because they're young, I want to feed them something that they can keep for all their work," he added. "It's not educational, it's an exchange."

International festivals like the one in Aranya is a "perfect opportunity to find our friends, to meet new ones and to share our experiences together," said dancer Wu Mengke. 

Having been to Chinese cities like Shanghai and Beijing, Lightfoot noted that China has a fascinating culture and he has seen "so many changes, and I feel very lucky. I wish my family and my friends could see and feel the same things I've experienced. It just feels great to be in the culture."

Culture and exchanges connect us with different cultural backgrounds, he added.