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Chinese Independent Documentary
CIDFA003:
Dance with Farm Workers
Directors: Wu Wenguang
Length: 60 min
Production Year: 2001
Synopsis:
DANCE WITH FARM WORKERS is a documentary about very unconventional performance of the same name. Unconventional inasmuch as the project involved not only actors and dancers, but also 30 Beijing farm workers from the poorer regions of Sichuan province. In addition, both the rehearsals and the performance took place in the production hall of former textile factory that could soon be torn down as part of Beijing’s rapid modernization, as had thousands of such production halls before it. The superbly fit farm laborers, who can to the city when they lost hope that conditions would improve at home, are the supporting pillars of this modernization. The performance was initiated and organized by choreographer Wen Hui, artists Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen, and myself. We invited 10 professional dancers and actors, three o them (a French woman and two Americans) foreigners studying in Beijing, as well as 30 farm laborers working on building sites in Beijing whose sole wish as first was to be paid 30 Yuan a day, which we promptly did. It was only some time later that they discovered that they, the lowest of the low, would be standing center stage.
The film has screened at:
International Forum in New Cinema, Berlin Film Festival (2002)
Jeonju International Film Festival (2002)
New Zealand Film Festival (2002)
London International Film Festival (2002)
Vancouver International Film Festival (2002)
Liverpool International Film Festival (2003)
MOMA, New York (2004)