PORTFOLIO APRIL 2018
WUSHENG COMPANY
WUSHENG COMPANY WWW.WUSHENGCOMPANY.COM PORTFOLIO APRIL 2018
WUSHENG COMPANY
Founded in 2011, Wusheng Company is the first professional theatre group of Chinese traditional theatre in Europe. Whilst gracing physical theatre, Wusheng Company strives to develop new ways of expressing performance art. By adding Finnish expertise, Wusheng Company enhances traditional Beijing Opera. “Wusheng” means “Warrior” and is a Beijing Opera character.
Wusheng Company has produced eight premieres since being founded. Some performances have been traditional Beijing Opera plays, and some written and dramatised by Antti Silvennoinen, Artistic Director. Technically, Wusheng Company’s most essential principles when making art are, skilful, high-class and entertaining performances regardless of culture.
Our main performers are trained in Beijing every year. In 2016 Wusheng Company took part in the Moi Helsinki event in Beijing, while in 2017 a Beijing Opera competition was organised for groups outside China, and Wusheng gained second place. In August 2017, Wusheng was awarded a prize at Finland- China Culture Gala.
Further information
Antti Silvennoinen – Artistic Director [email protected]
Salli Berghäll – Producer [email protected] www.wushengcompany.com
WUSHENG COMPANY WWW.WUSHENGCOMPANY.COM HIDDEN FACES MUSASHI - THE WAY OF THE SWORD Premiere: 1.3.2018 WHS Theatre Union Helsinki Premiere: 8.1.2016 WHS Theatre Union Helsinki Direction: Antti Silvennoinen Direction: Antti Silvennoinen
Inspired by Japanese ghost stories, the Hidden Samurai aesthetics meets the Beijing Opera and Faces is a beautiful and sensitive story about two heavy music in an intensively beautiful sisters and their quest for a better life. performance of the decisive acceptance of death.
THE LAST WARRIOR POHJATUULEN KOLME LAHJAA Premiere:18.8.2015 The Finnish National Theatre Premiere:25.4.2014 Direction: Lü Suosen Direction: Antti Silvennoinen In Co-operation with Tero Saarinen Company, Helsinki Festival, Aasia Helsingissä Festival, Centre An exciting Beijing opera inspired comedy which of International Cultural Exchange, Chinese is suitable for everyone over the age of five. Ministry of Culture, National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts (NACTA)
WUSHENG COMPANY WWW.WUSHENGCOMPANY.COM THE RIGHTEOUS GENERAL IS BANISHED THE GUARD - AN EVERYDAY HERO Premiere:27.9.2013 Premiere:10.1.2013 Kanneltalo, Helsinki Direction:Lü Suosen Direction:Antti Silvennoinen In Co-operation:Klockrike teatern, Asia Helsinki festival Dubbed as the very first Finnish Beijing opera, this performance looks up to 80’s A classical play from the Ming dynasty. actions films while skillfully utilizing
FIGHT IN THE DARK EPÄONNISTUNUT RYÖSTÖ Premiere:23.8.2011 Premiere:9.1.2011 Direction:Lü Suosen Direction:Antti Silvennoinen In Co-operation: The Chinese New Year / City of Perhaps the most well known Beijing opera play of Helsinki all time. Toured in Finland 2011–2012
WUSHENG COMPANY WWW.WUSHENGCOMPANY.COM VIDEO CLIPS
Hidden faces trailer 2018 https://vimeo.com/261629295
Finnish Cultural Foundation, About art and science: Beijing Opera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PUYEEwYukk
CCTV: Wusheng Company in Finland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vvm923Wy7g
Guard - an everyday hero trailer 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEBSEWysxWI
Excerpt from The Guard - an everyday hero (2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=614&v=tqL1Clvr46w
Guard - an everyday hero trailer 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uvl8KWB4pk
Musashi - the way of the sword –trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmLZIp-U_qM
The Last Warrior https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyFKh6b5gI4
WUSHENG COMPANY WWW.WUSHENGCOMPANY.COM WUSHENG COMPANY: THE LAST WARRIOR
Helsingin Sanomat: The Last Warrior review Culture 20.8.2015 Jussi Tossavainen
Wusheng Company’s virtuoso founder, Antti Silvennoinen plays the part of the stubborn General Gao Chong.
The Last Warrior Performed by: Antti Silvennoinen, Tero Saarinen, Elias Edström, Ville Seivo, (troops) Venue: The Finnish National Theatre
If Wusheng Company’s last Beijing Opera, The banishing of righteous General was an event, the Festival Weeks’ Last Warrior is an Event.
The Performance group has grown and one new name for it could be a Cluster of Talent. Do they perform Beijing Opera anywhere outside China, other than in Finland? Not as skilfully and as in earnest?
The oddly titled art form demands versatile skills and is by nature one complete art form in itself, if anything.
Last Warrior, directed by Lü Suosen is one of the more well-known Beijing Opera combat plays. With its entirely male cast, the show focuses on combat and fight preparation.
Naturally the show includes acrobatics and battle simulated scenes.
WUSHENG COMPANY WWW.WUSHENGCOMPANY.COM Despite the masculinity, everything is performed elegantly and stylised in true Beijing Opera fashion. No blood on stage. Brecht in his day was also impressed by alienation.
Co-founded by the brilliant Antti Silvennoinen and Elias Edström, the performance does offer some surprises. In traditional Beijing Opera the stage is simple, scenery representational and the whole show fully lit. In this show, the atmosphere is more tense with smoke, awesome lighting and reflections on mystical landscapes. Created by none other than the Lord of lights, Mikki Kunttu.
A surprise name is also Tero Saarinen, making his debut in Beijing Opera. His dancing and choreography talents are already well-known, but this discipline is a new world for him.
As expected, Saarinen shows physical expression skilfully. His very presence carries the role of Commander-in-Chief with the necessary reverence. All the details are there, such as his delicate handling of loose sleaves and clothes. He doesn’t sing the “Aaria” section so we can only read it from the captions shown.
No great loss. Besides being charismatic, Saarinen doesn’t show off, but is a natural member of the ensemble.
One more surprise was in the prologue with its delightful retro-styled map-animated and narration. I wondered who was narrating this with such pleasant and correctly pronounced Chinese names. It’s Ismo Alanko, of course!
I marvelled at the previous show as to how the script, translated into Finnish, works not only linguistically but also culturally. Intonation, foreign to Finnish language didn’t worry me at all, rather the recitals sounded like a discipline in their own right, an archaic style.
Add a war party to the performance, who, with their acrobatic skills, provide plenty of pace, action and danger.
The show’s climax comes when stubborn General Gao Chong goes against orders and starts to fight the troops on his own. The precisely choreographed battle is circus, physical expression, mime and dance at their very best. Stylized and aesthetically brilliant. Antti Silvennoinen, who studied this discipline in China, is the shining star of the show.
Silvennoinen gives a virtuoso performance in the scene where Gao is wounded. The thud of his death is even comical. And Tragedy and comedy don’t cancel each other out in any way.
The dramatic final scene brings the whole story together and graces the hero, the final warrior.
WUSHENG COMPANY WWW.WUSHENGCOMPANY.COM