Chinese Star Choreographer in *The Lady from the Sea*

Most people live in China, and one of China's foremost dance artists, Yabin Wang, is currently in southern Norway to create a new interpretation of Henrik Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea together with Kilden Teater and Oakland Rain.

Choreographic style as "liquid water"

Yabin Wang brings three dancers from his own company Yabin Studio to Norway. At home in China, Yabin is a big star, and since 2010 the rest of the world has begun to take notice of this pioneering performing artist. Last year, Dance Magazine called her "the coolest Chinese choreographer you've never heard of" and described her choreographic style as "liquid water". Theater director Amalie Nilssen got exactly the same feeling when she saw Yabin's choreography for The Moon Opera.

- "Despite growing up on opposite sides of the world, in very different cultures and speaking different languages, I feel artistically closer to Yabin than anyone else I've worked with," says Amalie.

A lifelong dream

Last September, Amalie and Yabin met in Beijing while Yabin was working on his performance An Individual Soliloquy. The two discovered that they both shared a lifelong dream of staging The Lady from the Sea and decided to do it together, first in Grimstad and then in Beijing. In China, Ibsen is so big that the word for feminism is "Noraism", inspired by Nora in A Doll's House. Nora leaves her husband and children to be true to herself. This controversial choice made waves throughout Europe when the play was published in 1979. Nine years later came The Lady from the Sea, in which Ellida Wangel also fights for her right to be true to herself.

Throughout the play, it seems that Ellida wants to do what Nora did and leave her husband. In a surprising ending, she still chooses to stay and take on one of the biggest challenges life has to offer: Being true to yourself and the people around you at the same time.

Under the starry sky of Fjæreheia

The Lady from the Sea is a stage text packed with beautiful Ibsen lines, but the play is also largely about the unspoken: The thoughts and longings that are impossible to put into words. Where the words end, Yabin's dance begins. People, emotions, text and nature become one under the starry sky of Fjæreheia. With the dance, Yabin captures the universal and eternal in Ibsen's universe: Our search into ourselves and out towards each other. The Wangel couple are trapped in old grief and stuck roles. Yet they manage to free themselves from the expectations of the outside world and find their way back to the love they have for each other. More than anything else, The Lady from the Sea is a play about hope - and about the fact that it's never too late to give yourself a second chance.