Screen-shot Shanghai Grand Theatre

Time for a bit of western culture.  We had been told a couple of months ago that an American Ballet Company  – The Richmond Ballet Company of Virginia would be in Shanghai at the end of May.  As the time drew near, when I started to try and get tickets, it turned out they they wouldn’t be performing at Shanghai Culture Square (on the site of the old dog track) but at the much more prestigious Shanghai Grand Theatre.  I looked on line, but all the ticket information I could get was solely in Chinese so that meant that I wasn’t going to get anywhere doing it that way.  A quick search using Bing (Google Search along with all other Google products is banned in China) led me to locate a ticket office near West Nanjing Road metro station, so off I set in search of tickets.  When I got there the ticket office was closed, so my only option was to wend my way through the streets from the ticket office to the theatre itself to see if they were selling them directly.

The route I took led me through a market that was described as a pet market street in one of my guide books, but there wasn’t an animal in sight, only some very colourful stalls and a bright yellow manneken pis advertising waffles, I presume because of the Belgium (Brussels) connection between the two.  Anyway I got my tickets for the one and only ballet performance on the last Saturday in May, and last Saturday we set off to the centre of town for a late lunch and then onto the show.  Looking for food around the Grand Theatre the guidebooks suggested

Entrance to Huanghe Lu Food Street

No 50 Tai Sheng Yuan Restaurant

we try one of three restaurants on the food Street Huanghe Lu (Lie Fallow Street).  We already eaten here on our first Sunday in Shanghai at Yang’s Fried Dumplings, which was fine, but we couldn’t find Lai Tian Hua at no 159, only the sign above the door, and Tai Sheng Yuan at No. 50 didn’t appeal, so we tried Gong De Lin at no. 21 – the Godly restaurant which prides itself on having been a vegetarian restaurant since 1922.  We took the lift to the first floor, as soon as the restaurant opened for the evening session and had

Gong De Lin – The Godly Restaurant

a look at the menu.

Front page of Menu

I ordered West Lake Green Tea, which was fine.

The rest was the worst meal we have had in Shanghai so far.  The flavours reminded me somewhat of the food we ate in China on my tour around the country in 1986.  The bean curd was made into pretend duck skin, the “ham” with the mushrooms tasted of spam and the lotus roots in osmanthus had been steeped in sugar and were sweet and sickly.

West Lake Green Tea

Duck skin, ham and lotus roots

Spring Rolls and Mushroom soup

Duck skin, ham and lotus roots

The mushroom soup was watery and insubstantial and the spring rolls were rolling more than they were springing.  There were a couple of strips of green pepper lurking beneath the pseudo ham dish, but that was it.  Now the lack of greenery may have been partly our fault in what we ordered, but looking around the other tables all their food seemed to be either brown or brown, just like ours. Considering how good vegetable cooking is nowadays in other parts of the world, with chefs such as Yotam Ottolenghi who does cook meat dishes, but uses vegetables fantastically well we were very disappointed. We won’t be visiting again.

Across the street was the Park Hotel Deli.  There was a queue outside when we had gone into eat at the Godly and it was still there when we came out.  Richard went to investigate but we couldn’t work out quite what it was they were all queueing for. There seemed to be croissants and galettes, but Richard wasn’t convinced that that could possibly be the reason for the queue, but this man did seem to have a shopping bag completely stuffed full with croissants.

After our disappointing meal we headed over to The Shanghai Grand Theatre, which opened just under 17 years ago, but which still looks very modern, with its unusual curved top floors.  It was designed by the French Company  ARTE Charpentier.

Shanghai Grand Theatre Front Entrance

Shanghai Grand Theatre Side View

The inside is equally as stunning:

The ballet we had come to see was Traditions and Innovations performed by the State Ballet of Virginia, USA – The Richmond Ballet.  I was very good (mostly) and didn’t take any photographs as the young ladies walking around the theatre with placards just before the performance had started had requested.  Anyone who tried to, or had the light from their mobile phones showing, were quickly marked out by a small green light that was shimmered over their device.  I did take photos of the curtain calls for each ballet and only once got told off by the dreaded green light.

Ballet Traditions and Innovations

Valse Fantasie by George Balanchine

Swipe by Val Caniparoli

After Eden by John Butler

Lift The Fallen by Ma Cong

Us dwarfed by Richard Foggio

Valse Fantasie is a 1965 is a typical classical ballet and was quite frankly rather dull in a Les Sylphides kind of way.  Swipe, using music by Prokoviev (Gabriel the grandson, not Serge the grandfather) was striking, thrusting and exciting combining classical ballet point work with hip-hop moves.  It reminded me a bit of Still Life at The Penguin Cafe Orchestra, at least the strings did, but there was ample use of forceful rhythm drumming in the music as well.

After Eden another traditional ballet from the 1960s by John Butler about Adam and Eve seemed a bit of a strange choice for a ballet taken to China.  I wonder how many of the Asian audience knew who Adam and Eve were, let alone what Eden was.  But maybe that was the point?  Any way a more interesting ballet than George Balanchine’s with Eve evidently part of Adam in the beginning and then breaking away to become her own being and then the two bodies then combining again. (Made me think of all the genetic problems their off-spring must have had.)

The final piece was Lift The Fallen a contemporary piece by the Chinese choreographer Ma Cong, in which he describes the loss of his mother and the healing process which eventually follows as grief subsides.  There is much use of large swathes of metres of fabric in this ballet which are run around and manipulated over the stage in various ways.  And I loved it.

But the real reason we came to the ballet, even though we do enjoy watching this art form was to see the young man right on the very end of this line up for the curtain call for Lift The Fallen.  It is a little difficult to really keep your eyes on the whole changing dynamics of a ballet when you are constantly trying to pick out one particular performer.  Richard Foggio was a stand-in and had danced in the first half of the ballet.  An American, he had been in my daughter’s class when they both started school together (and probably even did ballet lessons together too, I believe) when his parents were living in Northamptonshire.  It was lovely to see him outside the Stage Door (the security guards wouldn’t let us in without a pass) having grown into such a fine (and tall) young man, and doing what he evidently enjoys in a theatre which he described as fantastic.

Postscript

Group-hug prior to curtain up for Lift The Fallen

Richard’s mother messaged me not long after with the following (and the photo):

Richard was thrilled to have been invited to participate in this tour. As a member of Richmond Ballet’s second company, RBII, he was brought to be back up for the demanding male roles. He was thrilled to have been able to perform in several of the performances, and Shanghai was the ‘crowning jewel’ when he got to perform the ‘torch lift’ in ‘Lift the Fallen’ with the prima Lauren Fagone. Having friends in the audience made it the perfect end to the season for him. The best news is he was promoted into the first company with his contract for next season!