The Premiere

Ying, a young man born in a fishing village in southern China, devotes himself body and soul to contemporary dance. Since the day he discovered Michael Jackson, being a dancer becomes his main aspiration, while helping his father to fish. Dance is a way for him to get away from his small village and free himself from his family’s hard way of life. After 10 years struggling to launch his dancing career in Beijing, Ying believes that it is the time for him to return to the village to repay the ocean Gods, to offer them a votive performance. But when he returns to the village to work on the preparations of his colossal project, he faces the incomprehension of the fishermen community.

Ying once said to me, “If I cannot control my body, what else can I control?". Thanks to the dance, Ying has invented for himself a goal to reach, and this sense of purpose has helped him to build his identity. I think this story can be really inspiring for my generation, who needs to project oneself into a promising free future, by making up perspectives of hope within a compartmentalized society. I see a real parallel between Ying's quest and mine’s, between his show’s trajectory and my film’s. «The premiere» is not just a dance movie. It is a film that testifies to the history of young Chinese artists who try to free our word, to emancipate ourselves and to exist through art.