This spring witnesses the return of Jiang Shaofeng’s Tap Team, bringing you a new combination of classic and modern dances.
Zu Yao, which means “the folk of feet”, is a tap team from Beijing. As the uncontroversial top in China mainland, the team is headed by Jiang Shaofeng, pioneer for American tap dance in China.
Simple imitation after foreign dance teams cannot satisfy the ambition of Zu Yao. By exchanging with foreign dance teams for several times, it finally finds its own style–folk of the feet. Zu Yao adopts American tap as the major style and perfects it with other art forms in order to create marvelous works.
Tapping with bands: it may sound all too plain, but that is where Zu Yao makes its breakthrough. Besides performing classic works with bands, Zu Yao also tries to compose its own music. In this way, it can let you feel personal feelings through music and dance in a more real and direct fashion.
Cooperation with beatboxer: tap dance, the only form of dance that can be enjoyed with ears, is rich in rhythm. Before the appearance of beatbox, mouth is supposed to be used only for talking and eating. The appearance of beatbox shows that mouth can also create dynamic rhythms and beautiful tunes, and more potentials are yet to be tapped. The combination of the two forms of art provides audiovisual effects that have rarely been seen before in the world. And that is what we do in China: Zu Yao works with the top beatboxers and creates an art form that is beyond your imagination.
Combination with folk music: In China, tap dance is an “Imported Art”. However, art is not bounded by borders. Since we introduced tap dance from America to China, we shoulder the responsibility to develop it here, to integrate it with Chinese civilization, culture and music. With this aim, Zu Yao performed in combination with folk music many times. In 2014, in the first round competition in the television program I want to perform in the Evening Party of the Spring Festival, the team leader Jiang Shaofeng danced to the classic song of A night with flowers and moonlight by the spring river performed by Pipa. Combining the melody of traditional Chinese folk music with the beating rhythm of tap dance, Jiang was successfully promoted. In the second round, he danced to the well-known song of Horse Racing performed by Erhu, with beatbox inserted into the performance. In the stage, Jiang Shaofeng danced like a wild horse running on the wide prairie. The performance won applauses of the audiences and praise of all three judges, and, unsurprisingly, Jiang Shaofeng was successfully promoted to the final. You don’t want to miss the wonderful performance.
In the evening of April 26, Zu Yao will bring you the Classic and the Modern, which will be a feast for your eyes and ears. In the first half of the performance, Salute to the Classic, Zu Yao will perform the dance from the classic tap dance movie Singing in the Rain, and the classic work by Gregory Hines, the master of tap dance. In the second half, The Modern, Zu Yao will cooperate with more musicians of various styles, and express the tap dance with more musical forms. Zu Yao will reinterpret music with rhythms.
- Start: 20:30
- Tickets: Rmb 50
