The basic lineup of “Zuhe Niao” is a group of professional and amateur dancers all born in the 1980s who got together, invited video, music, theater and design, and other kinds of artists to join them, to create “physical theater” performance art. Zhang Xian, a member of the previous generation of this vanguard theater, contributed his knowledge and innovation to try to experiment with and encourage conceptions of a new kind of theater art in Shanghai. Members of “Niao” Collective are not fixed, they gather informally, volunteer to participate. They respect different styles of artists, including dancers, and require them to perfect their own individual “body poet’s” writing. The group creates pieces without set boundaries.
- the collaboration of this group of artists, belonging to different generations and coming together from various art disciplines to explore new theatrical forms and push back their own boundaries. Zhang Xian, who is considered a political playwright and whose plays are often prohibited from being staged, is a member of the previous generation of vanguard theatre in Shanghai; the dancers and other artists involved all were born around 1980, so they belong to a new generation.
- the result, a form of physical theatre in which poetry & spoken word, dance & movement, music and visual art were combined - something quite new for both the artists involved and for Shanghai.
Zuhe Niao does not want to limit itself to a certain style but creates pieces without set boundaries, so the result will be different and new each time. In order to realize this, Niao was established as an open collective: the basic line-up is a group of professional and amateur artists from various disciplines, but members are not fixed and different people participate in productions each time.
Productions:
Artists