[Big read] Singapore a testing ground for Chinese dance dramas going global

Singapore has recently become the top overseas destination for fine arts performances from China. Since the second half of last year, three popular Chinese dance dramas, including Wing Chun, A Mere Touch of Green, and A Dream of Red Mansions, have been or will be held in Singapore, giving local audiences opportunities to appreciate live performances of top-class Chinese stage arts.

Singaporeans may not realise the immense popularity of these three dance productions in China, or how convenient it is for them to enjoy these performances. In fact, many Chinese travellers fly to Singapore specifically to watch these productions. The arrival of top-tier Chinese intellectual properties (IPs) in Singapore not only promises to spark creativity but also serves as a measure of Singaporeans’ familiarity with and acceptance of Chinese culture.

As the Chinese economy continues to rise and its upper middle class become globetrotters, Chinese art performances are increasingly staged abroad. Yet, does this mean that Chinese productions have garnered foreign followers, expanding their reach beyond domestic audiences?

A Mere Touch of Green is jointly directed by Zhou Liya and Han Zhen, known as the “twin stars of the Chinese dance world”. At the end of March, it was performed abroad for the first time, with six shows at the Esplanade in Singapore. 

For both the dance troupe and the local organiser, Singapore was the top pick for the show’s overseas premiere. 

Yin Xiaochen, CEO of Neo-Film Media Investment, whose company was the local organiser of A Mere Touch of Green, said, “During our discussions with the dance company, we agreed that Singapore was an ideal location for the overseas premiere.”

Yin also told Lianhe Zaobao that Singapore’s location at the crossroads of East and West means that local audiences are familiar with Western cultures and also accepting of Chinese culture. This makes it a good testing ground to gauge the reception of the production in foreign markets. Furthermore, there is also a high demand for stage performances here, so both sides “agreed on Singapore”.

After the pandemic, the live performance scene in Singapore rebounded strongly as local audiences welcomed top artistes like Blackpink, Jackie Cheung, and Coldplay, and Broadway musicals like The Lion King and Hamilton. 

In fact, less than a month prior to the debut of A Mere Touch of Green here, American pop queen Taylor Swift held six consecutive shows in Singapore at the beginning of March. Swift’s concert not only attracted local fans, but also a large number of Swifties from the region to see her live. The gathering of 300,000 of her fans here marked the climax of the local stage performance scene.

For Yin, this is the first time that his company was organising a commercial dance theatre production. Based on the exposure, support, and popularity that A Mere Touch of Green received in China, he decided that the time was ripe for it to head overseas. He said, “It was a very good opportunity to bring the show to Singapore.”

The poetic dance drama is based on A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, a renowned Song Dynasty painting in the possession of The Palace Museum in Beijing. Produced by the China Oriental Performing Arts Group, formerly the Chinese Song and Dance Troupe, A Mere Touch of Green has been performed 500 times in 62 Chinese cities since its debut in 2021. In 2022, the production won the Wenhua Award, the highest government accolade for professional stage arts in China.    

On 31 January 2022, the drama appeared on the China Central Television’s (CCTV) Spring Festival Gala, and this further boosted its reputation. To date, its Weibo hits have accumulated 620 million reads and generated 235,000 discussions, and it has been described as the “ceiling” or apex in Chinese dance drama. 

In an interview with Lianhe Zaobao, Chen Juan, the director of the China Oriental Performing Arts Group brand who headed the tour to Singapore, said that Singapore’s position as a melting pot of many cultures means that local viewers have a certain degree of acceptance and appreciation for various art forms.

She also feels that Singapore’s geographical convenience, mature infrastructure, and emotional ties as a fellow Asian country make it an excellent testing ground for Chinese cultural exports.

Other than gauging market response, Singapore’s standardised operations in stage technology and work processes also allow Chinese teams to gain experience in working with foreign partners.

Recalling his initial technical discussions with venue representatives, Yin from Neo-Film said that Singapore’s working style is to prepare meticulously even at the preliminary stage. From major parts like the stage ceiling, stage lifting, and lighting system to smaller ones like having suitable power voltage for power sockets, every detail had to be taken care of.   

Yin concluded that the gelling process will provide Chinese performance groups heading overseas in the future with examples and standards to refer to. He said, “They (the Chinese team) would be very clear (of the workflow) when they return.”  

Chen from the China Oriental Performing Arts Group pointed out that their Singaporean partners had strict requirements on the number of props, equipment, and preparation of various materials, so her team had to do plenty of work. But the experience gained would also make them more confident for future overseas performances. “Basically, 80% of our worries have been eliminated”, she said.

In October 2023, Wing Chun, a dance drama described as the younger sibling of A Mere Touch of Green because it was also jointly directed by Zhou Liya and Han Zhen, also held its overseas premiere in Singapore. The production showcased Kungfu culture in the southern China region of Lingnan. 

When interviewed by Lianhe Zaobao, the organiser of the Wing Chun tour in Singapore said that the recognition and understanding of Lingnan cultural symbols among older Singaporean Chinese formed the foundation and advantages of local audiences. Furthermore, the live performance market in Singapore is comparable in concepts, aesthetics, and practical conditions to those in Europe and America. Besides, the geographical proximity of Singapore also means “it’s easier to manage costs”.   

A Mere Touch of Green is the highest grossing dance drama in China over the last two years. In 2022, it even brought in the highest box office earnings across all stage performance categories. It has become a phenomenon in China with many loyal fans. 

According to Neo-Film’s Yin, fan groups who flew in from China for the performance made up 30% of the audience for its first show in Singapore. 

Yin said frankly that the original intention for bringing the dance drama to Singapore was to attract more locals into the theatre to appreciate the artistic conception of traditional Chinese poetry, calligraphy, and painting. But the audiences for the first few shows were still mainly made up of new immigrants and Chinese fans. It was only midway through the six-show tour that more locals bought tickets after good reviews spread via word of mouth.   

When asked about attendance and box office takings for the show, Yin said, “[We] managed to balance the books.”

However, he added that this is already quite an achievement for a strictly commercial dance performance.

Indeed, going by the target audience and box office takings, it is very hard for fine arts performances like dance dramas to surpass popular culture performances such as concerts. While tickets to A Mere Touch of Green performances in China are usually sold out a few months in advance, the response during its Singapore tour was some way off.  

Similarly, A Dream of Red Mansions, an original dance drama by the Jiangsu Centre for the Performing Arts, is scheduled to be performed in Singapore this September. Based on one of the four great classic novels of Chinese literature, tickets to the folk-dance drama are hard to come by in China. 

For example, when ticket sales for its performances in Chongqing started on 29 April, lower-end seats sold out immediately, with the remainder following suit subsequently. As for the performances in Singapore, even though tickets went on sale during the same period, tickets are still available across all ticket categories for all sessions.

Singaporean Chinese screenwriter, Li Shiju, told Lianhe Zaobao that it is not that local spectators are unwilling to spend on performances, but that they have too many options and are more drawn to star power. 

A case in point is the craze here over the classic play, Teahouse, which was performed by the Beijing People’s Art Theatre in 2015. At that time, the play returned to Singapore after 29 years and tickets sold out way in advance. In the end, last minute circle seats were added on the third and fourth levels of the theatre. 

In contrast to emerging dance performances from China, well-established Broadway musicals have the upper hand in terms of public interest and brand recognition, while organisers are more willing to splurge on publicity both prior and during the tours. 

Broadway musical Miss Saigon is only scheduled to be staged in Singapore for nearly a month in August, but taxis are already sporting advertisements. Another musical, Hamiliton, was recently on tour in Singapore for nearly two months, during which huge advertisements were prominently displayed at bus stops.

Other than differences in their publicity campaigns, most Singaporean audiences also generally find the language and content in Western stage arts easier to understand than those in Chinese art performances. 

In April this year, the Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theatre of Jiangsu performed the opera Peony Pavilion in Singapore. Lee Hock Ming, a Singaporean poet and retired professor from the Beijing Institute of Technology (Zhuhai) College of Global Talents, was among those who were invited to the performance. Recalling the audience’s response at the show, he said that it is challenging for Singaporeans, especially the younger generation, to appreciate Chinese stage arts, particularly those in classical Chinese like Peony Pavilion and A Dream of Red Mansions, given their lack of Mandarin proficiency. 

Lee said, “It is necessary to have surtitles of the opera lyrics in both Mandarin and English at the side of the stage.”

He added, “Just imagine having Wu Song’s tiger-fighting tale translated into English… it becomes less relatable.”

Even for local audiences who are proficient in Mandarin and who love Chinese art, emerging cultural performances from China are not on their radars.

Some Chinese media outlets reported that A Mere Touch of Green and Wing Chun caused quite a stir in Singapore, with some people even catching it twice. The reality is that discussions of both performances were limited to social media platforms like WeChat and Xiaohongshu that are primarily used by Chinese and new immigrants from China. Singaporeans who support Chinese arts tend to use Instagram and Facebook instead, where there was little discussion of the topic. 

While this is a question of the marketing channels used, it also revealed that local lovers of Chinese arts inhabit different circles from their Chinese peers.

Choo Thiam Siew, former CEO of Singapore’s National Arts Council and former president of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, agrees with this. He told Lianhe Zaobao that while the performance troupes from China are professionally trained and have impeccable standards, local audiences have different interests even though they learnt and speak Mandarin, and love art. This is the consequence of differences in social structures.

In an interview with Lianhe Zaobao, Quah Sy Ren, an associate professor at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Chinese Division, said that Singapore’s Chinese culture and arts have unique characteristics. While Singaporeans also accept and appreciate Chinese culture and art, their Singaporean identity is prominent. 

Singaporean screenwriter, Li Shiju, said that there are plenty of local Mandarin works, and their production teams are familiar with the social media preferences of locals, so they know which channels to attract spectators. Such works also have plenty of local phrases that resonate with local audiences, allowing them to build up a stable base of support.

At this year’s Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts, Everything for You, a family play by local Chinese-language drama group Nine Years Theatre, received plenty of attention and topped ticket sales together with Cantonese opera performances by renowned Hong Kong actors Liza Wang and Law Ka-ying. In comparison, a Suzhou pingtan musical storytelling show which was also part of the festival received little attention.

Nevertheless, Neo-Film’s Yin, a long-time observer of the Chinese film industry, remains optimistic about the developmental prospects of Chinese fine arts in Singapore. He feels that as the younger generation here starts paying more attention to Chinese mainstream and popular cultures, its members would become more interested in Chinese culture and willing to delve deeper into it.

Yin added that it is important for the staging of Chinese performances abroad to become a norm because it is only through regular cultural exchanges that more people would grow to like them.

Singaporean poet Lee Hock Ming also feels that there is no need to be overly pessimistic. He said that Chinese films and TV shows have reached local viewers, this means that they have started noticing Chinese works that have more depth and substance. With more guidance and suitable publicity, there is still hope of attracting Singaporean viewers who were born in the 1970s, who have better command of Mandarin, and higher spending power.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “《青绿》《咏春》登陆狮城 热辣滚烫中国IP出海不难出圈难“.

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