Shen Yun Dancers Q&A: Our Insights on Acting in Classical Chinese Dance

Hey, welcome back. We're the Three Musketeers. And today, we're going to give you some insight on acting in classical Chinese dance. And we managed to invite a special guest. All right, the first question is, did you ever consider acting when you were a kid? Yes. How do I do a check mark? When I was a kid, I used to really enjoy going up in front of the class and then performing for my fellow classmates. And then when the teacher would ask, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I'd be like, an actor. Okay, I wanted to be an actor too when I was young. And then I like to do some plays when there's... Wait, wait, stop, stop, stop. Can I stop you for a second? You're so introvert. How do you want to be an actor though? Well, but you know, a lot of good actors actually introvert. It's true. Yeah, and then like, I like to practice in front of the mirror when I take a shower. I wanted to become famous, but then I didn't want to become an actor. I was more like, more into like a baseball player or something. He wants to be a famous baseball player. Baseball, that's cool. When I was a young kid, I would say that I was not into acting. But there was a period of time where I really wanted to be an actor, like a movie actor or a TV series. And it was when I was watching a lot of TV dramas. I was like, ooh, being an actor could be really cool. What do you like about acting the most? Okay, I think it just brings me like why I wanted to become an actor when I was young. So I thought it was very cool that you can be like anyone. Actually, my answer was exactly the same as B-Song. You can explore so many characters. You can be basically from a flight attendant to like in a general. And then on top of that, I also enjoy acting because you can experience a lot of emotions, you know, different emotions. Because in life as adults, we're told to hide our emotions or control our emotions. And so some emotions you're not allowed to kind of show that much like anger or, you know, not that I want to show anger. Okay, let's be clear about that. But then, you know, you can like express all your emotions and then you're free to do on stage. No rules. I think for this question, we probably all have a very similar act. Ideas of what we like about acting. But in terms of classical Chinese dance acting, you can actually portray any different emotion or character with classical Chinese dance. And that's what makes it so unique and special. So in our showing performance, you can see like comedic pieces and like dramatic pieces and tragedies, like all different types of pieces all portrayed through classical Chinese dance. Can we have the next person, please? Hi, I'm here for the audition. Yeah, you can start whenever you're ready. Look, thanks for coming, but this isn't Broadway, okay? Next! What kind of character do you like to portray when you're dancing? Something that's challenging for me, like Chinese emperor or like general. The character is furthest from me. It's not very close. I, from like, even from like the personality to like social lengths. So what is something that is closer to you especially? I don't know. So that would become really natural and easier to portray. Yeah, something like, I don't know, people say pig feet or something. Pig feet from the Monkey King. Comedic characters. What I like to portray on stage is usually like generals or like ministers or like really like serious and righteous characters. And let me tell you why, okay? The reason is because it's so different from what I am in real life. It's so far from my personality. It's really interesting for me to experience those characters and to try to understand them. I thought it was really close to your personality, like a general and an emperor. Oh, well, I'm glad you think that way, Will. Much respect for Sam Poo. To be honest though, let's be honest. I'm better at comedical roles. To be very honest with you. Let me guess. General or something like martial arts. Okay, I tend to like characters who are more martial, for sure. But I actually don't have much of a preference. If you give me any role that I need to do on stage, I'm okay with doing it. Very happy and a playful character such as like that little monk. Because it's so far from what his personality is. And actually, I kind of like extreme. I like two extremes. Or I really like to play either a happy character or a very miserable character. Wait, there's two ends of the spectrum. That means you like playing all characters. I have to like cry like crazy. Or like, you know, like if you watch the Mortal Fate in Shining Creations. Interesting. So you like either very, very happy on the end of the spectrum or like a tragic character. So you're a very extreme person. Anything in between is not good for you. No, but I think because those two kind of like characters can like touch the audience the most. Yeah, you can start whenever you're ready. Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy, man. Easy, what? Is that a banana? I'm your father. Okay, stop. Where do these people even come from? Okay, you know what? Just get out, please. Just leave, please. Hey, you guys too. You guys get out, get out. You guys too, get out. Get out. What is your process for portraying a character? Or do you have any tips? A character that I actually portrayed a lot in our performance is the Monkey King. And basically, I actually went to Mexico and we had this whole show called El Raymono. It was like one and a half hour show and it's all Monkey King pieces. So you're just the Monkey King for the whole show, basically. And then for that character, how I really got into it, the first thing was I actually read the whole Journey to the West novel. And I actually read that when I was really, really young, actually, when I was around 13 years old. So that was before I even had the chance to portray it. But actually, that gave me all of the imagery of the whole story, the whole journey, and the whole process, you know, the Monkey King, from arrogant to like humble. And after that, when I actually tried to go on stage, what really helped me was actually watching the TV series, the really old TV series. And I get to see that visual of how the Monkey King is portrayed on television. And it really helped me bring that live onto stage. A tip I have actually of portraying characters is the first thing you do, especially on stage, the first thing you do is find out what age this character is. So the reason I say that is because every character moves differently based on the age. So for example, one year I did Kang Seung. He's the master of the Monkey King. And I was really surprised I got the role because it's like the complete opposite of my personality. Yeah. And then for that role, what did you say? I mean, the character is very calm and, you know, it's like... Nevermind, just get going. Okay, anyways. So for example, if I'm me, right, I probably will be really up and, you know, really high and happy. And I'll be probably jumping around, hopping around on stage. But if it's someone like Kang Seung, he's a little bit older, a lot older actually. And then how he walks will be slower. How he raises his hand will be slower. And so if you get a character, a tip I have is just how old is he? And you can base a lot off that answer. You said the Monkey King, you said the monk. I said exit. No, I'm just kidding. I try to relate the character to myself. If I can't relate to the character, then I can't portray them. So you have to relate to them, meaning like you kind of have to understand them, right? Yes. So what if you get something like super villain? Like he's the worst guy in Chinese history, for example. How would you relate to him? I mean, for villain is a little bit different story for me. But how would I say on the stage stage, right? We usually like on the stage, we try to portray the positive side of a character or like the bright side of the world or like the life. So of course there's a villain, but then like we usually just show them this is a villain. We don't try to really tell the audience that like, oh, villain is like that, like this. Oh, this messed up, that creepy. I also try to like convince myself and then like say that, okay, okay, I'm the best, you know, I'm the top of the, you know, those people are very like, like, like this, like a piece of cake or something like that. Those people are a piece of cake? I mean, they're below you. He's hungry, dude. He's hungry again. Get the mass of cake. Snacks, snacks. Okay, oh, and then, and then for stage acting, you need some posture to help you. This year, I have like most manly character and the girliest character at the same time. For the manliest character is a king of the Northern tribe, something like they like- They're like barbarians. They're barbarians, you know, and then for the girly character is like the monk who pretend to be a girl to save someone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you check the show. So your tip was? A tip is like, it's very useful. It's very useful, actually. You know, for the, all the joints area, if you face like outside and thinking about expanding outside, there's a more you expand, more like a manly you look. Like, for example, like, like wrist and elbow and shoulder and everything, right? And then knees as well. So it's like, if you like face outward, it looks like- Give me some space, man. Yeah, it looks like, it looks like very like manly. Right. For the girls, it's exactly opposite. So elbow and wrist, right? Wrist face inside, elbow face inside, knee face inside and like this. Yeah, and then for girls, they use wrists too. I haven't had to portray a character like that. But no, it is, it is useful for anyone. It's a good tip. You might have a chance in the future. That's why in day-to-day life, I see Jisung practicing the girl version a lot. Yeah, right. You have to stop. Look, I'm your godfather. That's not even funny. I'm gonna make you a deal you can't refuse. What is the difference between acting on stage and acting in front of the camera? Size. Size? Why did you explain yourself? Size, okay. Kenji wants to go first. So that's XL, M, right? Yeah. For movie and film, like in front of the camera acting, right? I feel the size of the acting is like S to XS. Sometimes... Let me explain that like deeper. That's an interesting explanation. I understand. For stage acting, you have to go beyond M or L. Or sometimes even for comedic characters, you have to go to like a triple XL or something. In the film, you don't even have to move to convey a message or portray emotion. But on the stage, if you don't move, audience won't see it. Audience are too far away. On the stage, they're really big. That's why you have to use your body language. We're gonna show you what being shocked on camera looks like, our interpretation. I think what's really interesting while acting on stage is that even though... You know, our movements are very exaggerated, like what we said. That's like big, you know, you have to make it bigger. But what's still interesting is that for the audience in the very, very back, what they see is not only that exaggerated movement. It's actually... What's very important is the 精气神. That's something that you really, really have. What 精气神 is, is basically the spirit. It's your emotion. It could be something very simple. Like when we're talking about like movie acting, you talk about like your 眼神, which is basically like your eyes, your gaze, what you feel. But in theater, you can still feel that even at the back of the theater. If the performer or artist has enough feeling, you should be able to touch the audience with your feeling as well. So it's not only about making your movements more exaggerated. You still have to have that spirit. That's something that you can only experience live in theater as well. I mean, like acting is actually came from the stage acting throughout the history to became like a nowadays film kind of thing. So actually, yeah, we are the origin. Please get up. Do you have any funny or interesting stories to share regarding acting on stage? My story is both very interesting and painful. Let me explain. So there's a monk dance a long time ago. And basically what the story was about is basically I get held by a couple other monks. And then the dumb monk or the crazy monk, he slaps me in the face. And it's a fake slap on stage. But okay, the actor who's doing the crazy monk, he gets really excited when he's on stage. And I knew he gets excited. So I tell him before the show, I'm like, hey, dude, don't slap me for real, please. Okay, he's like, no, don't worry, it's gonna be good. And then one show, he came up to me during the performance, like on stage. And I saw in his eyes, I'm like, he's gonna slap me because he was so excited. And then he, and it was a real slap and it hurt really bad. And it was really, really loud. Did audience like it? And the funny thing is, after the performance, some audience members came up to me and like, that slap was so realistic. How did you guys do that on stage? There's even a sound. Well, yeah, that's because it was real. I played the role of Pigsy for like many years, like four or five, six years. Yeah, so, and I had a different monkey king every year to journey with. And then for the last couple of years, I had a journey with the Peter Huang. And then that was actually like my best hoge monkey brother ever. Shout out to Peter. And then, and I remember that last two or one year, we got so like in sync and connected. We know exactly what we, each person do. I remember like, we can't even talk on the stage while we are acting. There was one year, like, this is not important role. And then I had this like a civilian role, like I did Red Dragon comes out from the sky. And then our civilians have to get panicked and go run off the stage. But we have to panic for like 20 seconds. And then me and Peter Huang improvise every single show. The different acting. Different acting every single time. Cause like, it's not important role, but we can improvise it. As long as there are the emotion and we don't interrupt the other characters, the main characters do on the stage. And then like on the side stage, when the company manager, they told me that they did watch us too, every single show to see what we are going to do. What is the most meaningful moment for you while acting on stage? Get the review from the audience. Sometimes like when the audience seats are closer, we can hear like, you can, I actually can see some like audience wiping their tears. And then maybe afterwards they come over and they're like, okay, that was really touching. And then I'm so touched. And thank you very much. Just in terms of performing on stage, I find it really meaningful because what we're bringing to the audience is traditional Chinese culture. And if you don't know, the Shui Yun performance is actually banned in China right now. So we're able to perform everywhere else in the world, except for like China, pretty much. And when people come to watch our show, I think it's a really new experience. And I hope that if you watch our show, you actually go away with like a open mind, more open-minded, because I'm pretty sure our performance is like nothing like anything you've ever seen before. I don't know, that's just, that's the reason why I find it very meaningful. Unlike movie acting, which I guess you would just perform it once, right? And then film it, and it'll become a film. We perform the same show every day for half a year. And how do you keep it fresh? Yeah, I don't feel like tired of acting because one thing is because in our show, we have like more than 10 programs, which means that you have more than 10 characters to portray. And sometimes you have to switch the character in 30 seconds. It was really like, there's a lot of characters to portray. And then I think it's never enough. And especially for stage, it's like, there is no retake. You know, there's only one chance because the audience is there. You have to go all out. So I never really felt, I always feel nervous. You cannot make it perfect. It can be better, always. I try to dig deeper each time to this character. It's more like a process of exploring this character. Acting is a boundless, just like what we do every day. We do the same moves, same like fundamental stuff. We have to kick 300 kicks every single day. But then we also try to find something that we can improve today. Or like I try to find something that I can try or new, you know? Because nobody's perfect, like he said. Or they only get better. I want to like to share a different perspective, actually. So what's really interesting about Shen Ying's performance is that every single year we put on a completely new show. And this is unlike any other company that I know of in the performing and theater industry. Because it takes so much work and effort, but we're willing to put in that work and effort to present something that's completely new to the audience every single year. And we have 5,000 years of history to base off our dances, our stories. We have all like these resources to pour stories from. So we always have something fresh and new for the audience. And you know what? Like for every single half a year, we're going to all these different cities, different venues all across the globe. So it's really, really fresh because we're going to different theaters and there are different people in the audience every single day. And even though it's just half a year, it's actually not long, right? So next year after this ends, it makes it really special. If you miss our performance this year, you're not going to be able to see it again. It's like a limited time thing. So, you know how there's like merchandise that you can buy? Yeah, limited edition every year. Every year, our SHINee performance is a limited edition thing that you can only see that year. Next year is a completely brand new show. Complete different costumes, new costumes, new choreography, and new music. Everything is different. You know what? I'm getting excited just thinking about it. I'm getting ready for next year's performance. At the same time though, if you did watch the show that year, next year if you come back, you'll see a whole different performance so you can watch every single year. That's exactly what he said. Isn't that what I just said? Yeah, that's what I just said. It's fine. That's a good point though, man. That's a good point. So don't... I'm sorry I missed it. Okay. No, I'm a tree. No, no, no, no, no. Wait, no. Give me a chance. No, no, no. No. I'm your father? No. No, no. No, no, no. Why is it so hard to find an actor? I could be doing this better. Oh my gosh. Um, I'm here for the audition. Go ahead, whenever you're ready. Okay, okay. Just give me a second. Luke, you do not yet realize your moments. With our combined strength, we could end this destructive conflict and bring order to this galaxy. You don't even know what happened to your father. It was you who killed him. No. I am not wrong. Wow, that was amazing. You got it. You're the one. You got the role. Oh, really? Oh, yay. Thank you. All right. Thanks, man. So we'll keep in contact, right? Welcome to the Star Wars family. What? Star Wars? Isn't this Sesame Street? No, this is Star Wars. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I came to the wrong audition. I thought this was Sesame Street. In classical Chinese dance, every movement has to portray inner meaning. What does that mean? My interpretation of that is that what we were talking about earlier was acting. It's like drama acting. Because in classical Chinese dance, through our drama pieces and our comedic pieces, through the story dances, there's like drama acting as well. But this question is more like when you're doing classical Chinese dance movements. So dance movements, you have to have inner meaning. And what that means is, for myself, when you're taking classical Chinese dance class, dance class, and it's just a fundamental routine, and you're doing a simple movement, like let's say jia shan bang, like da, there has to be feeling behind that movement. You can't just be like ba, like a stick person. You can't be a stick person in classical Chinese dance. That's what it means to have every single movement has that feeling. So you could do it in a comedic way too, like da, or you can do it in a more grand way. There's actually a change a lot, like automatically. It's not like I actually think about, okay, I have to make the arms smoother or not. It's like when I give the feeling, that thing kind of comes automatically. In theory, it should come naturally because what we said earlier is, in classical Chinese dance, there are two very important aspects, which is shen yun and shen fa, which is basically bearing and form. Form is the movement, and bearing is the feeling. And that's something that needs to be trained on a daily basis, I would say. I value its importance. What about you, Kenji? We're both teachers. Talking a lot. What do you think, Kenji? Don't fall asleep. Do you value the importance of this during your dance class? I think it's one of the most important parts of the Chinese classical dance. And I do have, because I don't think of acting, but it's like when music comes, whatever the music feeling gives me, I try to follow that feeling. It's like a natural thing. It's like as an artist or dancer, the feeling, the music, I think is part of the important training, too. When I teach, I try to teach those kinds of stuff. But it's hard to teach this kind of stuff. This is more like, I don't know, the forms are easy to shape, but the inner feeling is hard to teach. It's more like you can only inspire them to find their own understanding of dance and music. Everybody has different feelings. And everybody, even though we do the same movement together, but each of us has a little different. That's why you can only inspire and make them find their own understanding of inner feeling. And then this comes like morale or like one's moral conduct every day. Because this kind of stuff is not, you pretend to do it. Sometimes you can do it, but it's not natural enough. The dance movement or costume is only the outside surface or shell, you can say. But what's most important in our art form or like what we do in the dance is like the inner feeling. Everybody can do the same movement with the same music, with the same costume, but the message and the feeling you convey is different. I think I want to just go on a little bit of a tangent here. What's really important, I think, about acting in general, but not only acting, because that's too small. It's performing on stage or even if you're a movie actor, is how you carry yourself, like your morals. And for us, for myself personally, I think spirituality is something that's very, very important. So I'm a practitioner of Falun Dafa, and basically what we follow is the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. And if you just think about it, just following those principles actually will affect your dancing. Because think about it, like as a dancer, our life is really tough. You go through training, it's really, really tiring, and you have to stretch every single day. We're jumping and our bodies are sore all the time. But the third word is forbearance. You endure through that. And then after going through that, you find out that you achieve greater results, right? So even on stage, because of our spirituality, I think the feeling and energy that we give to the audience members is actually very different. And it's something that they can feel. So that's actually something that's very, very unique about ourselves as performers, is that we're always trying to constantly improve our moral characters and work on that, our virtues. And that's something we actually truly value. And I think it really translates to our performance. You can do it with the cream-minded. Cream-minded. Cream. What kind of cream? Cream? Okay, yeah. Maybe you want to eat cake? I think... Why do you keep saying cake? Those people are very like a piece of cake. All right, so thanks for watching all the way here through our video. I hope you guys found that interesting. And if you guys have any questions or comments about acting, make sure to leave it below. And just smash that like button if you like it. All right, that's... Subscribe. Thank you. Subscribe it. Subscribe it, subscribe it. Subscribe it. Okay, subscribe it. All right, that's it for this one. We'll see you guys... Next time!