BMW shows its 'JOY' by joining hands with renowned dancer from Yunnan

When Yang Liping was a little girl, her grandmother once drew an eye on her palm, telling her that the hands are connected to the heart.

"When you grow up, you will learn to see the world with your heart," she told her granddaughter.

The young girl would go on to become the nation's best-known folk dancer.

Now 54 years old, Yang was born to a farming family from the Bai ethnic group in Eryuan county, Yunnan province. She said that eye remained with her as she "came to witness how trees grow, how rivers flow, how clouds drift and how vapor condenses into dew".

But more than just an observer, she is dedicated to sharing the beauty she sees.

In this year's CCTV Spring Festival evening gala, her folk dance performance Love of Peacocks captivated millions of Chinese TV viewers.

It was actually 26 years after she first performed her iconic dance of the peacock, a totem of the Bai people, on national TV, but this year's viewers saw that time had taken very little of her beauty.

Yang's life is an epic of dance. She has won countless awards at home and overseas since starting her career with a local dance troupe in Yunnan in 1971. Her work has introduced original Chinese ethnic dances to the world.

After more than 40 years on the stage, she is now passing on her legend to the next generation.

Supported by BMW, Yang started the Dynamic Yunnan Art Inheritance Center last month. The center will teach children from poor villages in the province and prevent the traditional art from reaching extinction.

"I have just been a sincere dancer who continued training, searching, and thinking," she said. "And maybe, sincere people are always blessed by the heavens, so whenever I want to do something, someone will come to help me." This time, that someone is BMW.

Dance of life

At 13 years of age, Yang was recruited to a dance troupe in Xishuangbanna, a region in southern Yunnan. Before that, she received no training in dance at school.

In 1979, the lead dancer became ill and Yang had the chance to take her role. The audience was deeply impressed by the substitute dancer who was "dancing with her heart".

The next year, she moved to Beijing to dance with the Central Ensemble of Ethnic Song and Dance.

Yang's days were not easy in the prestigious art group. She refused to accept routine ballet training because she found it "dull, and opposite to her understanding of dance". Despite criticism from her teachers, she insisted on practicing in her own way.

She presented a peacock dance in 1986, which won first prize in a national competition and made her famous overnight. Ever since, she has been called the Peacock Princess.

"When she dances, she could be a drop of water, a flower, a peacock. But at the same time, she is a human." said Xiao Quan, a renowned photographer who has worked with Yang for more than 20 years. "Man and nature are connected in her dancing."

Search for happiness

Yang left the Central Ensemble of Ethnic Song and Dance in 2000 and return to her hometown in Yunnan and continue her love of folk dance.

She designed, directed and performed in the musical Impressions of Yunnan three years later, but the debut attracted only one audience member with three cameras due to the SARS scare across the country that kept people at home.

Yang has since recruited ethnic performers to her troupe and tried to raise funds to support the shows. But she said the biggest problem was that the original folk dance was "too special for the market's taste", so the troupe failed to generate the revenues needed to retain performers.

Things began to change in 2009, when the troupe started making a profit and had more opportunities to perform overseas. Impressions of Yunnan, now considered an artistic name card for Yunnan province, was performed regularly at a theater in the center of the provincial capital Kunming.

Yang has been "doing just one thing throughout her life, which is searching for happiness", said Xiao.

"She has witnessed the greatest beauty of the world, and has no better way to express than dancing," the photographer said. "And while she dances, she can feel the passions of heaven and earth, which makes the process full of joy and happiness."

No speech needed

Daniel Kirchert, senior vice-president of sales and marketing at BMW Brilliance Automotive, said he likes Yang's dances very much.

"The first time I saw her dancing, I was so overwhelmed at her skill and passion," said Kirchert. "No speech is needed in her dance. The stage was her whole world and she told her stories through each move.

"Her dancing and spirit match our 'JOY' spirit, which has connotations of passion, dreams, and the harmonious interactions between humans and nature," he said.

After talking with Yang, Kirchert said he understood the "hard and determined" way the dancer-choreographer pursued her art and carried on the ethnic culture of Yunnan province.

"I believe Yang is a perfect representative of 'the Chinese dream'," he added.

With the founding of the Dynamic Yunnan Art Inheritance Center, BMW will provide financial aid to 188 students Yang has selected - all from poor families of Yunnan - through its charity organization Warm Heart Fund.

A BMW dealer in Kunming also sponsored the program.

Yang will offer free training to talented children, so the art form "can be passed on in a good fashion", she said.

Yang believes those who fit her style of dancing are not professional ballet dancers, but those who dance "facing mountains, woods and bare fields".

She said she always remembered an old lady with crooked back in the village where she grew up dancing with a leaf in her hand at the riverside, under the trees and in the open field.

And now she is passing those primal feelings about nature to her students.

The dancing master's niece Yang Caiqi, born in 1999, made her debut with her aunt at only four years old. She said her aunt told her the most important thing when dancing is "passionate devotion".

"When you are watching the sky, pierce it with your sight, she told me."

In addition to the art center, another of Yang's major plans for this year is a nationwide tour of Peacock, a dance drama sponsored by BMW that contains the essence of her 40 years on stage.

Yang's team is busy rehearsing the show, and declined to reveal detailed information. But many assume it will be the farewell performance for the Peacock Princess.

zhangzhao@chinadaily.com.cn