Integrate
Created by Shen Wei. West Bund Dome Art Centre, Shanghai, China. 15 October 2023.
Xueting Luo
Background
Mid-autumn nights in Shanghai are enchanting, with the translucent round roof of the West Bund Dome Art Centre on the west side of the Huangpu River emitting a hazy light akin to a giant lantern. From 1 to 20 October, crowds of art enthusiasts gathered here in great anticipation of an art feast: the 2023 performance of Integrate by the renowned director, choreographer, and visual artist Shen Wei, which has been labelled a ‘total art’ piece (Shen Wei Dance Arts, ‘Integrate’): a multimedia performance that presents ‘an immersive art scene that deeply integrates classical Chinese philosophy, contemporary art, and the art of dance’ (China Shanghai International Arts Festival).
This performance debuted at the same venue in the summer of 2021, with tickets selling out rapidly (Huang 46), highlighting its notable success and considerable audience enthusiasm that year (Liu 24-5). In 2021, the West Bund Dome was still very much a piece of industrial heritage: the century-old Shanghai Cement Factory was built and put into operation in 1923, relocated to the West Bund site in 2019, and in 2023 was renovated into a formal art centre.
Reviews of the 2021 event depict a stunning visual tableau, juxtaposing desolation and humanity (Dong). Within the historical site, characterised by its raw, open space devoid of enclosing walls, the dancers performed amid the challenging conditions of intense heat and mosquitoes. As Tianye Dong describes, despite these adversities, the performance mesmerised audiences with its contemporary stagecraft that fused installation art, multimedia, sound, dance, and technology. This engagement was enhanced as audience members were encouraged to enter the dancers’ performance space, becoming an integral part of the live dance (Dong).
The 2023 renovation of the cement factory building was part of the wider construction and urban renewal of the West Bund waterfront (Chenbao). Retaining its iconic dome in the conversion, the building now serves as a distinctive backdrop for artistic endeavours. Among these, Shen Wei’s Integrate stands out as a work intricately tied to the architectural design of the dome.
Shen Wei claims that the 2023 iteration of the work has undergone enhancements, from its visual presentation to the enrichment of the audience’s experience, offering a clearer layout and structure (Liao). This evolution includes introducing a second-floor perspective, designed to complement the original ground-level view. This addition enriches the viewing experience by providing a dual-layered perspective, combining the intimate immediacy of ground-level interaction with a broader view from above.
Audience members, for an additional fee of 200 RMB (about £22), could access the second-floor auditorium to experience ‘a comprehensive 360-degree panoramic view’ (Liao). This allows full appreciation of the stage design, with its 64-square grid and the 32 dancers’ movements; meanwhile, attendees had the flexibility to return to the ground floor for a more immersive experience and the ability to observe the dancers’ movements up close.
The Performance: Parts I and II
On 15 October, drawn by the intriguing background information, I made my way to the West Bund Dome for this new rendition of Integrate. That evening, the lobby was alive with an air of anticipation from the many attendees. While our initial motives may have been similar, it was only in the reflective quiet after the show that I understood: we had all begun a journey of introspection, inspired by the space’s distinctive dome and what had unfolded beneath it.
According to the performance poster’s description, the staging comprises three parts, structured as follows: Part I: All Beings Have Souls; Part II: Everything Is Connected; Part III: Heaven, Earth and Man as One. Part I is an immersive exhibition featuring 64 artworks by Shen Wei, each inspired by the theme of the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching. Part II unfolds through a video narrative, showcasing the echoes and resonances of dancers across two temporal spaces: New York in 2010 and Shanghai in 2021. Part III marks the climax of the entire work, showcasing 32 dancers moving within squares symbolising the 64 trigrams. In the second half, the audience is encouraged to enter the performance area for a closer view of the dancers’ movements.
Shen Wei exercises creative control, personally orchestrating the process from creative concept to choreography to visual design. Thus, this piece stands as a distilled representation of Shen’s exploration of interdisciplinary arts over the past three decades. This immersive ‘all-sensory experience’ (ARTRA2023) captivated me. Integrate lives up to its name by engaging the audience’s senses in multifaceted ways. Visual stimulation is achieved through photography, painting, and installations, while the airflow and scents introduced by the dancers evoke tactile sensations. The auditory experience is enriched with immersive soundscapes, and a sense of kinaesthesia is activated through observing the intricate movements of the dancers. By weaving together a diverse array of artistic mediums, including text and video, the performance creates a comprehensive sensory journey.
The immersive process commenced as soon as I entered the theatre, nestled within the dome-structured building’s heart. Guided by the design of the Part I exhibition, I was free to wander through the artwork. The theatre, dark and vacant, hosted 64 stalls, arrayed along the theatre’s circular perimeter. Each individually lit stall represented an I Ching hexagram. As I traced the circle, I encountered diverse displays on the stands: paintings, texts, photographs, and sensory installations crafted from Chinese herbs.
Possessing some familiarity with the 64 hexagrams, I engaged deeply with the visual works; I contemplated their alignment with the I Ching’s enigmatic hexagram descriptions, which were inscribed on the exhibition stands. Although I perceived the links between some images and their hexagram descriptions to be somewhat tenuous, my interest was not lessened.
For instance, the Zhen (震, literally ‘shake’) hexagram, which deals with fear and maintaining composure in emergencies, was represented by a photograph of a young Tibetan boy standing by a wall. Similarly, the Yu (豫, literally ‘providing for’) hexagram, indicating the emperor’s efforts to rally his troops and garner support for his campaign, was juxtaposed with three photographs of striptease performers mid-act. To me, navigating the circular path resembled a spiritual ritual. Just as one might not grasp the meaning behind a shaman’s chants, I found myself embarking on an intuitive journey through ancient wisdom within this space.
While the immersive experience in the exhibition’s first part is primarily through dynamic engagement—moving around the space—the second part emphasises a more stationary, contemplative experience, allowing the audience to settle. At the circular theatre’s centre, four large-format screens formed a square enclosure, creating a centripetal force that summoned the audience’s attention. Viewers were positioned in various directions, either stood or sat on the ground to watch the video displayed across these screens. The video features two interlaced sets of dance clips, one from New York in 2010 and the other from Shanghai in 2021, showcasing different groups of dancers performing in urban settings. As the dancers on screen gathered or dispersed, my consciousness travelled between these two distinct spatial and temporal realms, occasionally snapping back to my immediate reality. This experience offered a glimpse into the universe’s perpetual motion and transformation, resonating with the underlying philosophy of the I Ching.
Part III
The full-sensory experience culminated in the live dance performance of Part III. In contrast to conventional dance theatres, the audience was permitted to enter the performance space. Accompanied by deep, prolonged breathing sounds, 64 evenly spaced squares—each approximately four square metres—were unveiled on the floor and designated as performance zones. Thirty-two dancers were evenly distributed between these zones, and the audience was tacitly invited to wander along the paths between the grids, observing the dancers from less than a metre’s distance.
This immersive arrangement afforded an intimate perspective. I was enveloped in the dancers’ realm: close enough to hear their breath, observe the subtle glint of sweat under the lights, and feel the gentle gusts of air created by their movements. In this way, the three-dimensionality of their motions was pronounced; their movement had a sculptural visual impact. The dizzying, intense metallic sounds echoing from the dome, coupled with the shifting lighting, heightened the atmosphere. This sensory fusion created a compelling magnetic field, with the dancers at its heart.
Clad in nude tones, the dancers performed with introspective grace and an almost unearthly presence, transforming the site into a deeply ecstatic, primal ceremony. In this ritual, they embody the role of shamans. Their movements crafted a visual representation of the mystical music, while their extended limbs, charged with intense tension, reached towards the theatre’s star-filled dome, as if they were embarking on a spiritual quest. I transitioned from a mere observer to an active participant in the ritual, likewise gazing into the starry expanse. The other audience members were similarly engrossed, their entire being—body, mind, and focus—enveloped in the moment.
The production’s success also stems from its thought-provoking philosophical layers. It artfully merges the stage design with the building’s round dome, creating a symbolic resonance. This design embodies the ancient Chinese cosmological concepts: the circle represents Qian乾 (Heaven), and the square symbolises Kun坤 (Earth), encapsulating the idea that ‘squareness belongs to the earth, while roundness belongs to the heaven’ (Liu et al.). The theatre’s dome itself becomes an image of celestial roundness, while the grids on the floor represent terrestrial squareness. Meanwhile, the large circle formed by the stands displaying the 64 hexagrams at the theatre’s perimeter, along with the 64 grids on the floor introduced in Part III, vividly illustrate the I Ching’s 64-hexagram diagrams. These diagrams are circular externally and square internally: a confluence of heavenly and earthly representations.
The work also showcases Shen Wei’s deep reverence for traditional Chinese aesthetics, a homage rooted in his training in traditional Chinese opera and extensive immersion in calligraphy and painting. This influence was especially prominent in Part III. At a defining moment, seemingly triggered by a sound resembling birds’ chirps, the dancers walked into adjacent grids containing different pigments. They then fell on the floor and initiated improvisations, their bodies soon stained with colours. They used various body parts—limbs, chest, abdomen, back, cheeks, and even hair—as brushes, painting abstract patterns on the floor canvases.
This scene reflected Shen Wei’s evolution from his famous work Scroll at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony, in which dancers utilised a fluid Chinese movement style to create calligraphic lines on a long scroll using only their right hands. The Integrate dance extends this concept, transforming the dancers into dynamic agents of abstract art. The focus here is on the dancers’ freedom to improvise within a three-dimensional space, using their unique movement dynamics to spontaneously create on a two-dimensional surface. This resulted in an unrepeatable, individualistic visual texture that captured the essence of calligraphy, and particularly its cursive form, which emphasises the expression of the calligrapher’s personal style and emotion.
Integration
After the dance concluded and the audience slowly filtered out, the floor was left adorned with what could be described as abstract paintings. Wandering among these vivid creations, I found myself tracing the potential paths and efforts each dancer might have taken, almost feeling the movements that created these lines. I speculated about the dancers’ character traits, as though the strokes might offer a glimpse into their individual essences.
Throughout the piece, the multimedia approach is striking, yet it’s not the individual elements that leave the deepest impression on the audience. That is, the success of the piece does not solely rest on whether Shen Wei’s paintings or texts in the exhibition capture the essence of the I Ching hexagrams, whether the film conveys an illusion of intertwined space and time, or whether the dance movements align with traditional Chinese aesthetics, as some critics anticipated (Liu). Rather, the significance of the work is in the orchestration and integration of these elements, and the comprehensive experience this provides to the audience.
The work effectively blurs conventional lines between performance and exhibition, offering Chinese audiences a fresh perspective. It also encourages reflection on traditional philosophy and aesthetics through these mediums. In achieving this, Shen Wei has realised his artistic goal. As he states in his pre-show introduction to the performance: ‘Art has made a world wanderer out of me from an early age … Decades of traveling have helped bring out the beautiful art of my dreams and visions of the future. Distinctive cultures and knowledge of art have helped me reconnect with our past’ (Shen).
Shen Wei’s artistic philosophy, as articulated in his preface, reveals how his international journey—from his roots in China to his influential work in New York City—has profoundly shaped his artistic approach. His extensive travels and international collaborations have inspired his endeavour to weave traditional Chinese cultural themes into contemporary artistic expressions (Shen Wei Dance Arts, ‘Shen Wei’). His work not only synthesises painting, film, and dance but also advocates for the reimagining of cultural narratives, presenting innovative modern interpretations of ancient traditions.
The attraction and cohesion of Integrate stems from a confluence of various factors, including the developmental policies of Shanghai’s West Bund area and the cultural trend in Chinese society towards a re-embracing of traditional values. Shen Wei’s decision to exhibit Chinese cosmological concepts within the circular space of the West Bund Dome exemplifies the artist adeptly responding to the socio-cultural environment. This choice not only showcases his artistic vision but also demonstrates a harmonious collaboration with the city’s policies and community resources, creating a mutually beneficial relationship.
Works Cited
ARTRA2023. ‘Integrate 2023: Dialogue between Heaven, Earth and Humans’, 2023, mp.weixin.qq.com.
Chenbao, Xinwen. ‘Century-Old Historical Relics “Transformed” into New Art Landmarks! West Bund Dome Art Centre Unveiled, Art “Feast” after Art “Feast”’, 2023, baijiahao.baidu.com.
China Shanghai International Arts Festival. ‘Integrate 2023 by Shen Wei’, 2023, www.artsbird.com.
Dong, Tianye. ‘Under the West Bund Dome, Artist Shen Wei “Integrates” Dance, Painting and Video’. Shanghai Observer, 2023, www.shobserver.com.
Huang, Huimin. ‘Transcending the Beauty of Life: Afterthought of Shen Wei’s Dance “Integrate”’. Shanghai Art Review, vol. 4, 2021, pp. 46-7.
Liao, Yang. ‘10 Additional Performances of Shen Wei’s “Integrate”, What Are the Highlights of This Year’s ARTRA’, 2023, www.thepaper.cn.
Liu, Xiaozhen. ‘Shen Wei’s Integrate after His Return from Overseas’. Contemporary Dance Research, vol. 6, no. 2, 2021, pp. 24-7.
Liu, Siqi, et al. ‘Cosmology Concepts in Ancient China and “Heaven and Man” Concept in Huang Di Nei Jing’. Acta Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology, vol. 8, 2023, pp. 1621-5.
Shen, Wei. Integrate. 15 October 2023, West Bund Dome Art Centre, Shanghai.
Shen Wei Dance Arts. ‘Integrate’. www.shenweidancearts.org/integrate.
Shen Wei Dance Arts. ‘Shen Wei’. www.shenweidancearts.org/about-shenwei.