Hsi-erh, the white-haired girl

With this guidance, they began to examine more deeply their own attitude to their art and to the masses. They had thought originally that they were serving the labouring masses if they performed ballets such as Swan Lake for them and that it was up to the latter to learn to enjoy them. Now enlightened, they realize that if they perform works which propagandize the individualism and humanism of the bourgeoisie they are, in fact, not really serving the masses but actually undermining the ideological foundations of the socialist revolution and construction.

But how to serve the people with their dancing? Chairman Mao's teachings and ideas also guided them here on such difficult problems as the use of the cultural heritage and on the artists' approach to reality from a materialist-dialectical standpoint. In a little over a year, the young teachers and students of the dance school achieved an astonishing success. New to ballet though they were, they have produced a score and dance compositions which are effective and have a national style. The dancers mastered great difficulties in creating authentic revolutionary characters in ballet form. Their experience confirms that a revolution in ballet needs in the first instance a revolution in ideology. A deep love for the people and a revolutionary determination to serve them was decisive in their advance.

Weeding Through the Old to Let the New Emerge

One of their basic problems was how to adapt the foreign classical ballet form to reflect the modern revolutionary life of the Chinese people, to serve the socialist revolution and construction. This, in sum, they realized, was the problem of solving the contradiction between an old art form and new revolutionary content. Using the experience that had already been accumulated in China's modern theatre arts, the producers took as their starting point reality and the need to make the characters true to life. Those classical forms, techniques and movements which could be used or adapted to express the new ideas, emotions and sentiments, were used. If they proved utterly intractable, they were discarded.

For example: the accompanying song in the temple scene where Hsi-erh meets the landlord, expresses her dominant sentiment: "I want to tear him to pieces!" And this passionate hatred for the landlord, for her the embodiment of evil in the old society, is expressed most forcefully in her dance. Driven by the storm of her emotions, she leaps, whirls, on her toes and uses other classical ballet techniques, but fundamentally her dance, incorporating realistic mime and new movements, is based on the reality of her character and the situation. It is all cast in ballet form.

Some have asked: If you start from revolutionary political content and life won't this spoil the characteristics of classical ballet? If one believes that ethereal, fairy-like poses and "charm" are the essence of ballet, then this may be said to be destroyed. Without destroying this it will be impossible to create a revolutionary style of ballet, to present the struggles, the ideals, the feelings and sentiments of the worker and peasant masses. But on the other hand, the basic forms and techniques of the ballet will gain new life and be enriched and developed as it extends its artistic range and is remoulded to encompass the revolutionary life of the masses.

The experience of The White-Haired Girl confirms that a contemporary revolutionary theme can offer wide scope for using the special advantages of ballet - such as its powerful and sweeping movements, leaps and bounds, lifts and turns, and its basic forms like the solo and pas de deux, and the ensemble dancing of the corps de ballet. These are made more effective by successfully absorbing traditional gestures and movements from the classical Chinese theatre. One of many examples is the way Hsi-erh's father uses traditional Peking opera gestures with excellent effect as he brings her a New Year present or attacks the landlord.

An effective innovation is the incorporation of singing with dancing. The effect is powerful. It is intermittent, stressing, expounding the content at moments of high tension. The voices and words unfold the theme and sometimes the thoughts and emotions of the characters. This helps the audience follow the story and at the same time, along with the music, inspires the dancers. The scene in the cave when Hsi-erh is rescued gives a fine example of this. The words "Chairman Mao is the sun, the Party is the sun" are sung as the red light of dawn shines down into the cave. The song expresses what the dance cannot. They combine to produce a deep impression.

The music, played by a modern orchestra that includes indigenous instruments, also helps to widen the appeal of the ballet. The composers have incorporated a number of popular melodies of the time. They use the melody of The North Wind Blows, the famous song from the opera, as the leitmotif for Hsi-erh. Thus song and music combine to aid the success of this new attempt to make classical ballet a revolutionary, national and popular art form in China.

Approved by Working People

The White-Haired Girl started as a short ballet and has been revised scores of times in its progress to a full-length spectacle. Many revisions were made even after its premiere in Shanghai where it played to packed houses for 100 performances before coming to Peking.

The ballet was collectively choreographed by teachers and students of the school. Besides having the constant advice of the Parly, they benefited much from the concrete, clear and practical suggestions made by the working people. They organized six forums where worker and peasant participants gave some 200 suggestions ranging from the theme to the music, the characterizations, dancing, singing and stage settings. A great many of them were accepted.

In Peking, as in Shanghai, the people have given high praise to the ballet. A peasant said: "This tells the story of us peasants. It says what I want to say myself." A people's fighter wrote: "Its militant sentiment inspires me." Many have said: "This is our own ballet" and "It is a revolution in ballet, a revolutionary ballet."

The success of The White-Haired Girl is the fruit of the efforts of artists who have raised high the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thinking, and who have put politics first and the result of the revolutionization of their ideology. It is further proof that serving the workers, peasants and soldiers and socialism is the only correct road for Chinese culture and art.