AI and its role in society examined in ‘Hè Rite of Spring’, Miranda Chin’s latest adaptation of Stravinsky’s 1913 ballet for French May

Hong Kong choreographer Miranda Chin’s adaptation of Stravinsky’s controversial ballet will feature tai chi elements to celebrate cross-cultural exchange

This year marks the 110th anniversary of The Rite of Spring, a ballet that is widely remembered as one of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s more controversial works. When it premiered at the Théâtre de Champs-Elysées in Paris in 1913, its dissonant score, pounding rhythms and avant-garde choreography featuring jerky dance movements caused an uproar among the audience, who were used to romantic ballets and the symmetry of classical music.

More than century later, Miranda Chin, Hong Kong choreographer and former vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Dance Federation, made the bold decision to inject martial arts into The Rite of Spring, and have reinterpreted Stravinsky’s work thrice between 2003 and 2023.

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Above Hè Rite of Spring (Photo: courtesy of Miranda Chin Dance Company)

This year’s production, entitled Hè Rite of Spring (he means “harmony” in Mandarin), was created in collaboration with French May, and is a double bill featuring Hè Dancing with the World and The Rite of Spring. The first part explores how tai chi—a style of Chinese martial arts—can be merged with Chin’s modern dance movements and is part of her ongoing exploration on the topic. And the second part is the newest adaptation of The Rite of Spring produced under Chin’s artistic direction, and her latest exploration into the human-nature-and-technology relationship through the ballet.

Stravinsky’s original depicts a Slavic tribe sacrificing a young girl who dances to death to celebrate the return of spring, but in Chin’s contemporary versions, the girl is replaced by a spiritual leader who, in Taoism is someone that is deeply connected with nature. In 2013, Chin’s spiritual leader character’s experience of the modern word highlights society’s disconnect with nature, while in 2023 she is a metaphor for AI, and how much society relies on it these days for thinking, communicating, solving problems and so much more.

For Chin, her adaptations are meant to spark conversations about the impact of technological advancement on the human condition.

Above The 2013 production of The Rite of Spring by Miranda Chin Dance Company (Photo: courtesy of Miranda Chin Dance Company)

Having studied Chinese dance at Beijing Academy of Dance and modern dance in a few academies in New York, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, Chin had always wanted to find a unique dance style that blends the east and the west. In 1989, two years after relocating to Hong Kong, she set up the Miranda Chin Dance Company, an NGO dance group that teaches eastern and western dances, and stages modern productions to showcase Hong Kong’s culture.

Meanwhile, it was a 2002 research trip to Mount Qingcheng in Sichuan, China that sparked the choreographer’s interest in martial arts. Considered one of the birthplaces of Taoism, Mount Qingcheng is home to one of the most famous tai chi clans in China. There, Chin immersed herself in Taoist monks’ deep respect for nature and learnt about how they developed tai chi.

Considering the multiculturalism of her dance education and experiences, it’s perhaps no surprise that Chin saw potential in injecting eastern elements into Stravinsky’s western classic.

Above Hè Rite of Spring (Photo: courtesy of Miranda Chin Dance Company)

Chin felt Stravinsky’s provocative music could pair well with tai chi movements, which led to her first production of The Rite of Spring at Ngau Chi Wan Civic Centre in 2003, in which she replaced the original ballet choreography with martial arts movements. Creating the new choreography with tai chi wasn’t easy, however, because ballet movements are all about elongating the body to show lightness and elegance, whereas tai chi is about the feet’s steady anchoring to the ground while the body produces fluid motions.

This production increased Chin’s fascination with tai chi, but she felt it wasn’t enough to just showcase its physical movements; she wanted to create a production that captures its spiritual essence and how it symbolises the connection between nature and humans.

So in 2013, she created her second production of The Rite of Spring at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, in which her protagonist is once again a spiritual leader, but this time she has travelled to modern times only to find that people, instead of worshipping her, now worship their mobile phones. “The dancers around this spiritual leader, completely obsessed with their gadgets, ignore her and push her away. And instead of dancing to death, the spiritual leader dies of heartbreak [over the lost of connection between humans and nature],” she says. As the show draws to a close, the dancers move to take up seats in the audience, leaving the spiritual leader alone on stage, until one dancer moves back onto the stage to represent human’s desire to reconnect with the spiritual.

Above Hè Rite of Spring (Photo: courtesy of Miranda Chin Dance Company)

Fast forward to 2023, when the opportunity with French May was presented to her, Chin set out to produce Stravinsky’s classic again. But this time, the spiritual leader represented artificial intelligence. Chin named this year’s show Hè Rite of Spring, which—with its reference to “harmony” in Mandarin—is a nod to the duality between east and west (Hong Kong and France), and between humans and AI. And this time, instead of ignoring her or pushing her away, the dancers’ interactions with the spiritual leader character (portrayed by Paris-based Chinese dancer Ke Wen, who specialises in qi dance, which is a combination of modern dance and qigong, the Chinese practice of controlling the body’s energy) will represent human’s over-reliance on technology.

In this version, the spiritual leader also dies, and by the time she does, Chin imagines that “we won’t know what she will become when she crosses over to the spiritual plane, which is similar to how we don’t know what AI will become in the future. Will it control us? Will it bring us together? Will it improve our lives?”

To be clear, Chin isn’t trying to answer any of those questions. “I don’t have an answer for how we should perceive the digital age. It should be the audience’s personal choice,” Chin says. “But through this dance, I want to spark conversations on interpersonal connections.”

Above The 2013 production of The Rite of Spring by Miranda Chin Dance Company (Photo: courtesy of Miranda Chin Dance Company)

After this French May production, Chin has a busy time ahead. Next year, she will take her dancers to France for a cultural exchange programme and she will also continue to promote Chinese culture through dance. Ultimately, she hopes that Hè Rite of Spring and her other productions—which also blend elements of the east and west to reflect modern society’s issues—will keep people interested in dance and how it can help people communicate.

“After all, art is for you to express your thoughts,” she says.

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The Rite of Spring Martial art Ballet Stravinsky Dance

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AI and its role in society examined in ‘Hè Rite of Spring’, Miranda Chin’s latest adaptation of Stravinsky’s 1913 ballet for French May