Publicity photo for Thor of Common Man
Last year, Santuoqi's exploration switched to traditional Chinese cultural and more philosophical themes.
Physical drama Aquatique (2012), a story about a water ghost, was based on Pu Songling's Dark Tales. Different from many other ongoing big-budget productions, Aquatique was presented in a minimalist way with a very simple stage design and few props.
The training process borrowed from gymnastics, contemporary dance, yoga, the wing chun style of martial arts, and many other body movements. Such open-minded principles benefited Santuoqi in their choreography.
This year, Thor of Common Man pushed the exploration of modern theater and traditional Chinese culture to a higher level, drawing inspiration from Nuo Opera, Tibetan opera masks, Sui-style military costumes, Peking Opera, tai chi and many other folk arts.
The story of Thor, the ancient Norse god of thunder, has been told many ways, and to avoid copying past interpretations was not easy. While in rehearsal for Thor of Common Man, Zhao and his team struggled to find the optimal way of telling the story. They abandoned their plans over and over until finally reaching the result they have today.
Zhao said that he has always been interested in stories about ghosts and gods because they are usually full of morality and values, which can lead the audience to have thoughts on life and death.
Make it strong
Theaters have developed fast in recent years and today's audiences have more options when they want to see live theater works. However, not many independent groups are like Santuoqi, which has been so persistent and determined regarding what they want to do.
Their works were never about making people laugh or attracting crowds by hiring celebrity actors. Without a bit of idealism, one can hardly make it through the decade in the crazy competitive market.
Zhao described members coming to Santuoqi a bit like searching for a Utopia, with many of them holding other jobs and only going there to act. It was not until 2010 that Santuoqi finally found a producer Meng Xing to take in charge of all the costs and financing.
Now as Zhao and the team are able to travel many places to learn about the different dramas and the cultures, their focus has become more pure and simple.
"I used to think that choosing topics and ways of expressions was a bottleneck. Now, there are so many choices for me in terms of projects. The only real bottleneck is that what you expressed is not strong enough. It would be terrible if we lost the passion to express," said Zhao.
The summer of 2013 in China is filled with all kinds of drama festivals created for many reasons such as tourism or a way for the government to promote cultural projects.
For Santuoqi, the summer will also be about attending festivals, but they will be in Europe. Of course, the content in China will be different. But for Zhao, the fundamental difference lies on the reason the festival was created - is there one reason that is close to the real art of theater itself?
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