True Love

 

At least it looked like true love although it was actually a stage performance of a traditional Erdos wedding ceremony at the opening banquet.

Let me back up a bit. After wrapping up the installation tasks, we all headed back to the Xiang Sha Wan facility for the opening banquet. It was bitterly cold again today, so I headed into the Banquet Hall to find a spot to warm up. The actors for the night's performance were going through their final run-through, so I hung out and watched.

While they rehearsed, I had a chance to photograph some of the architectural details, even abstracting a few compositions.

The rest of the group arrive and we settled in for another extravagant meal from our Chinese hosts. It is amazing the hospitality they show meal after meal. And what food!

Left to right: Harold Ross, Joe Lipka, David Best, Tom Alleman, Chris Rauschenberg

Then, the performance started. All in Mandarin, so the following description is a guess.

Boy meets girl. Boy proposes marriage. Girl's family has a cow -- or I should say, has a camel. There's a bunch of "over my dead body" kind of stuff. Then the boy wins over the family. There's lot of dancing and drinking, of course, and the marriage comes off without a hitch after the boy's peeps and the girl's peeps each have a do for their respective compadre. Or something like that. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

I'm not an experienced performance photographer, but it was sure fun. The costumes are simply breathtaking. The guys are all strapping examples. The girls are sort of cute, too, ahem. Anyway, hope you find it all as interesting as we did.

These two came down into the audience for an opening toast with one of the dignitaries.

At this point, out came a part of the wedding banquet feast in the form of a roast something. A couple of the actors then carved it up and sent a plateful around to every table in the place so the audience could participate in the wedding feast. Very tasty! I think lamb, but who cares. It was simply scrumptious.

This is, don't forget, a photography festival. A few of us brought our cameras.

And the performers weren't the only ones being photographed. Here Chris Rauschenberg poses with one of the Chinese photographers for a snapshot.

Back to the action. Out come a bevy of lovelies each balancing a stack of bowls on their heads for a dance of grace and poise.

Easy. Anyone can do it when the bowls are all glued to each other and to the hat. Wrong, oh camel breath! They proved their veracity by removing the top bowl and pouring out its content. Wow.

The bride comes down to greet the audience. No wonder the guy went head over heels for her.

More celebratory drinks.

And that's a wrap.

Tomorrow is the opening ceremony and the exhibit begins.Oh, and it's "bonfire night." Yes!

Comments

[Mo :-)]

After the opening ceremonies for the Lishui Photo Festival last year (and, of course, the opening extravaganza for The Olympics) you get the idea that the Chinese love a good show! So... just curious... were you wearing your Cabela's down parka, under-fleece, and goosedown hat with earflaps while photographing the young ladies rehearsing with their bare arms and midriffs in their belly-dance-like costumes?

[Magelwilkin]

Beautiful place, authentic people, lovely gathering