Yin Mei
City of Paper
Friday and Saturday,
March 19-20, 2010 at 8 p.m.
Byron Carlyle Theater
500 71st St., Miami Beach
City of Paper is a multimedia dance/theater work interweaving personal history, contemporary and traditional dance, music, interactive sound and visuals to explore the practical, sensual and transformative qualities of paper. Featuring choreography and text by lead artist Yin Mei, City of Paper will be performed by U.S. and Chinese dancers within a stage environment where paper plays an active, even magical, role. City of Paper refers to the history of Luoyang, Yin Mei’s hometown, where paper was invented. An ancient literary and artistic center, Luoyang became another world during her childhood, when the Cultural Revolution made paper political, and the city was plastered with revolutionary slogans and critiques. Key to the work is Yin Mei’s collaboration with Sang Jijia, who partners with her through a series of duets that pass by as if in a dream – or in a film. Sang Jijia – playing the diverse roles of alter-ego, anti-hero, oppressor, father figure, hero, lover – emerges eventually as a character with his own mysterious story to tell.