The architecture says it all: dozens of metallic towers dedicated to commerce cluster around the city's epicentre of the performing arts, the Grand Theatre. But on Saturday night, the glittering glass cube of a theatre seemed as much a symbol of the future of the city as the flashing spires alongside.
There were few Caucasian faces in the audience of 1500 watching the Australian Ballet's second performance of Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake while posters outside advertised six more dance seasons this year — an evening of works performed by the New York City Ballet, works by French choreographer Roland Petit, a contemporary dance piece, Shanghai Tango, by the city's contemporary dance troupe, the Teatro alla Scala Ballet, presenting A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a production of the perennial end-of-year ballet, The Nutcracker.
There is an appetite for dance in Shanghai and a yearning for something more innovative than that offered by the dozens of visiting third-rate Russian troupes presenting a formulaic Swan Lake with dancers sleepwalking through the steps.
Murphy's Swan Lake was greeted with whoops, whistles and cheers on Friday's opening night, with principals Madeleine Eastoe, Steven Heathcote and Lynette Wills reprising the three lead roles of Princess Odette, the Prince and the Baroness, while on Saturday night Amber Scott made her international debut as Odette.
Scott, 23, replaced AB principal Rachel Rawlins, who tore a calf muscle on tour last week in New Zealand.
When Scott heard she had been chosen by AB artistic director David McAllister to replace the injured Rawlins, she "had two different feelings at once": concern about her colleague and absolute elation at the chance to dance the plum role of Odette in Murphy's Swan Lake on the massive Grand Theatre stage.
The Saturday night audience included the Australian ambassador to China, Alan Thomas, Scott's mother, Fiona, who decided at the last minute to fly up from Melbourne, and a large contingent from sponsor BHP Billiton including one of its directors, David Crawford, who is also chairman of the Australian Ballet.
A special guest on Friday night was Korean-born Jin Xing, 39, who was a colonel in the People's Liberation Army as a member of the military's dance troupe. After studying modern dance with Merce Cunningham in New York, she was the first man in China to have a sex-change operation. She adopted a son and a decade ago, formed China's first contemporary dance company.
She believes Shanghai is "a completely feminine city. Beijing is male. All rough and politics. Shanghai is more delicate. Money talks. Beautiful.".
Along with David McAllister and Graeme Murphy, Jin Xing spoke at a seminar on dance at an Australian enclave in Shanghai, the Glamour Bar on the Bund, run by Melbourne-born restaurateur Michelle Garnaut.
Jin Xing said she moved her contemporary dance company from Beijing in Shanghai, a city "historically open to the world", although contemporary dance in China as a whole was a struggling art form. Even the dancers of the Shanghai Ballet still only understood one dance vocabulary: classical ballet as taught by the Russians in the 1950s.
As for Murphy and his wife Janet Vernon, the city he has known for 24 years is shaping up as their second home. He has already choreographed a co-production with Sydney Dance Company and the Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble and told the seminar audience he sees the city as "the centre of great artistic potential".
The Age: Valerie Lawson, October 31, 2006