Beauty of the instruments and preciousness of the costumes, infinite delicacy of the secular Chinese court music and dances. With this show by the Han Tang Yuefu Ensemble, we are invited to a large-scale classical opera project. Nankuan dance theater and music is a spiritual and minimalist art, linked to Taoist and Buddhist influences. The director Lukas Hemleb collaborates with Mei-O Chen, musicologist, singer and director of the company. They draw together in old documents, scores, history books to restore this tradition. The poem at the base of this project is considered one of the great texts of the repertoire. The beauty of the Nankuan theater suits it in its simplicity, in the purity of its gestures and the rigor of its movements.

Source: Maison de la Danse de Lyon

Ms. Chen began her Nankuan study at the NanSheng organization in 1975. Thereafter, she visited many famous Nankuan masters throughout Taiwan, Southeast Asia (including the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore) and Mainland China to perfect her Nankuan skills, especially in Nankuan singing and pipa (lute) playing techniques. In 1982, she made it possible for Nankuan Music to be heard in           Europe for the first time. After  that, Nankuan music toured many countries and gained a fair share of attention in the musical world. In 1983, Ms. Chen founded Han Tang Yuefu in Taipei. She concentrated her academic study on Nankuan with the help of Mr. Yu Cheng-yao, a master on Nankuan history. Her new works include "Draft of Central China Classical Music", and the essay, "Research on Chin-Son Three Tones and Nankuan."  

Between 1985 and 1995 Ms. Chen has led her troupe to America, Europe, Australia, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia as well as the China Mainland, performing at more than twenty institutions of higher learning with over one hundred concerts. In 1990 she produced the CD, Nankuan: Thousand-Year-Old Music of China, that won the Executive Yuan  “Golden Cauldron” Tripod Award for Best Producer given by the Government Information Office. In November of 1991, she was invited to sing and perform at the Music Salon           at the Presidential Palace. In 1994 she organized and established the Han Tang Yuefu Arts Centre and has been serving to date as Artistic Director. In 1995 she completed the voiced archival project, recording  sixty-four great pieces in The Complete Nankuan Instrumental Music.

Her classical choreographed musical theatre pieces include Yange Xing (Sumptuous Feasting Song) - Liyuan Dance & Music, and Introduction to Nankuan Music commissioned by the Cultural Commission. This work won two Golden Tripod Awards for Best Record and Best Performance from the Government Information Office of the Executive Yuan. In 1996 she completed the Sequel to The Complete Nankuan Instrumental Music and Project for the Transmission and Preservation of Liyuan Musical Theatre, created the large-scale musical theatre Musical Dances Ancient and Modern. In 1997 she won the Global Chinese Culture and Art Award for Ethnic           Music. 

Source: web.archive.org

Author, filmmaker and video artist Charles Picq (1952-2012) entered working life in the 70s through theatre and photography. A- fter resuming his studies (Maîtrise de Linguistique - Lyon ii, Maîtrise des sciences et Techniques de la Communication - grenoble iii), he then focused on video, first in the field of fine arts at the espace Lyonnais d'art Contemporain (ELAC) and with the group « Frigo », and then in dance.
   On creation of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon in 1980, he was asked to undertake a video documentation project that he has continued ever since. During the ‘80s, a decade marked in France by the explosion of contemporary dance and the development of video, he met numerous artists such as andy Degroat, Dominique Bagouet, Carolyn Carlson, régine Chopinot, susanne Linke, Joëlle Bouvier and regis Obadia, Michel Kelemenis. He worked in the creative field with installations and on-stage video, as well as in television with recorded shows, entertainment and documentaries.

His work with Dominique Bagouet (80-90) was a unique encounter. He documents his creativity, assisting with Le Crawl de Lucien and co-directing with his films Tant Mieux, Tant Mieux and 10 anges. in the 90s he became director of video development for the Maison de la Danse and worked, with the support of guy Darmet and his team, in the growing space of theatre video through several initiatives:
       - He founded a video library of dance films with free public access. This was a first for France. Continuing the video documentation of theatre performances, he organised their management and storage.
       - He promoted the creation of a video-bar and projection room, both dedicated to welcoming school pupils.
       - He started «présentations de saisons» in pictures.
       - He oversaw the DVD publication of Le tour du monde en 80 danses, a pocket video library produced by the Maison de la Danse for the educational sector.

       - He launched the series “scènes d'écran” for television and online. He undertook the video library's digital conversion and created Numeridanse.

His main documentaries are: enchaînement, Planète Bagouet, Montpellier le saut de l'ange, Carolyn Carlson, a woman of many faces, grand ecart, Mama africa, C'est pas facile, Lyon, le pas de deux d'une ville, Le Défilé, Un rêve de cirque.

He has also produced theatre films: Song, Vu d'ici (Carolyn Carlson), Tant Mieux, Tant Mieux, 10 anges, Necesito and So schnell, (Dominique Bagouet), Im bade wannen, Flut and Wandelung (Susanne Linke), Le Cabaret Latin (Karine Saporta), La danse du temps (Régine Chopinot), Nuit Blanche (Abou Lagraa), Le Témoin (Claude Brumachon), Corps est graphique (Käfig), Seule et WMD (Françoise et Dominique Dupuy), La Veillée des abysses (James Thiérrée), Agwa (Mourad Merzouki), Fuenteovejuna (Antonio Gades), Blue Lady revistied (Carolyn Carlson).

Source: Maison de la Danse de Lyon

The Han-Tang Yuefu Music Ensemble ( HTYF ) was founded in 1983 by Miss Chen Mei-o of Nankuan ("Southern Winds") fame. Its purpose was to confirm the major role of Nankuan in the history of Chinese music, to trace the origins to its earliest sources, and to train singers and instrumentalists in the proper art of performing Nankuan music and, while energizing the lifeblood of this ancient tradition, rescue it from the brink of oblivion. Productions of the HTYF are marked by clearly defined scholarly goals, a spirit of in-depth cultural probing, distinctive ethnic characteristics, rich legacies in classical art, and highly polished performance techniques.            These have together contributed to their refined and superior elegance. For more than ten years as they performed this ancient music at centres of higher learning the worldwide, Han-Tang Yuefu have earned international renown and admiration at various art festivals in Europe and Asia, winning high praise everywhere.

In Taiwan, we produced in 1990 a CD record of Nankuan music which was awarded a triple "Golden Cauldron" by the Executive Yuan for the best record, the best performance, and the best production. In 1991 they won the top award given to a musical group by the Ministry of Education. In 1995 they were elected one of the "International Performing Arts" groups to receive support from the Council on Cultural Planning and Development which at last made it possible to implement their long-cherished dream of recording the complete set of 64 ancient Nankuan instrumental suites. In the same year they produced a CD record introducing the 

Appreciation of Nankuan and once more won a double "Golden Cauldron" prize for the best record and the best singing.

In preserving the essence of the ancient Nankuan tradition, HTYF  also elaborated upon the Liyuan xi or "Musical Theatre of the Pear            Orchard", a branch of southern music popular during the Song and Yuan dynasties (twelfth fourteenth centuries). Here in the telling of a tale, deeply introverted Nankuan music is wedded to highly refined songs and subtle modern movements inspired by the ancient tradition of Liyuan music. Establishing their "Liyuan Dance Studio", the troupe created programmes of classic musicals that are traditional in spirit but contemporary in form. Expressing continuity in the ideal: "contemporary music is ancient music; ancient music is            contemporary", it is hoped that such living traditions will firmly implant the music of the Han people on a global stage. It is their constant ideal and goal to "recreate tradition by being rooted in tradition." 

Source: web.archive.org

Luo Shen Fu is first a poem by Cao Zhi (192-232), one of the greatest Chinese poets of the Three Kingdoms period. In addition to his poetry, he is famous for having been immortalized in the novel History of the three kingdoms which has been the subject of many adaptations. This is the story of a fleeting encounter made in a dream, between a tired traveler and the ghost of his beloved, who died of melancholy, assimilated to the goddess of the river. The theme is recurrent in the Chinese imagination, whether with the meeting between a living and a dead woman (Stories of Chinese Ghosts), or between a man and a divinity (the Legend of the Great White Serpent), and illustrates the difficulty of living together when you belong to 2 different worlds.