Lady White Snake: A Chinese Folktale Comes to Life at Lincoln Center
The folktale Legend of the White Snake is as familiar to Chinese school children as Sleeping Beauty or Princess and the Pea are to those of us who grew up with Brothers Grimm fairytales. Now, Western audiences will have the chance to see this famous Chinese folktale come to life in balletic form. This July 26–27, the Shanghai Grand Theatre’s production Lady White Snake will have its U.S. premiere at the David H. Koch Theater in New York City.
Yuan Yuan Tan, Shanghai native and recently retired San Francisco Ballet principal dancer, is leading the New York tour as artistic director. She, of course, was familiar with the story from growing up in China. “It’s a story from 1,000 years ago about a creature falling in love with a human being,” says Tan. “They’ve made movies, cartoons, Peking Opera, all kinds of art forms telling the story in different ways.”
Tan was first invited to the Shanghai Grand Theatre’s production in 2019 as a dancer. (The organization, a Shanghai-based theater, has produced its own performances in recent years.) Lady White Snake experienced pandemic-related delays for its initial presentation in China, but Tan eventually performed the ballet in Shanghai in 2022. From the outset, she was in for a rich stylistic mix, as the Shanghai Grand Theatre’s producers included ballet, Chinese classical dance, drama, and even kung fu in Lady White Snake. It was a big ask from SGT for Tan to take on the project while dancing with SFB, but she found the innovative treatment of the folktale convincing: “To me, it was important to have a groundbreaking re-imagination of the story. And for those different art forms to show up in the same production is interesting.”
The Shanghai Grand Theatre has innovated and modernized the plot, as well. In the classic tale, the main characters are Bai Suzhen, the white snake; Xu Xian, the human man she falls in love with; Fa Hai, a religious figure who seeks to keep the lovers apart; and Xiao Qing, the green snake who is a friend or sister to the white snake. In this 21st-century retelling, with striking sets, Lady White is a modern housewife to Xu Xian, Fa Hai is a psychotherapist working to keep Lady White constricted by societal bounds, and the green snake represents Lady White’s deepest, freer self. “It’s like the part of her that keeps popping out, wanting to break through the social norms,” says Cincinnati Ballet principal dancer Sirui Liu, who is dancing the role of Lady White in one of the Lincoln Center casts.
After 14 years away, Liu—who, like Tan, is a Shanghai native—returned to China to perform in Lady White Snake and rehearse for the upcoming New York run. Similar to when Tan first danced in the production, the international casts didn’t always have time to work all together. When Liu first arrived in China to rehearse after closing out the Cincinnati ballet season, she says she had a lot of catching up to do.
Liu found further challenges in melding ballet and classical Chinese dance styles. “ In ballet you are very square,” she explains, “but in Chinese classical dance, it’s more about rhythm and how you use your hips and your body. There’s a lot of circular movement. On flat or wearing socks, it’s pretty easy. But when you have to do some of that on pointe, that’s when you have to readjust, find a different rhythm or center.”
Though much of the story and style will be unfamiliar to Western audiences, Tan and Liu both see certain messages transcending cultural boundaries. It’s a journey of self-realization: a woman discovering her true self in the face of pressures or people that would bury her passionate side. And, of course, the story is told in a universal language that Tan hopes will bring people back for a second viewing: “There are a lot of layers and meanings. And not to mention, the dancers are beautiful.”
