英语文摘:Dancing to Hong Kong tune

BEIJING, June 5 -- The city's best performers head to Shanghai, Zhang Kun reports.

The Hong Kong SAR government has commissioned Hong Kong's modern dance flagship, the City Contemporary Dance Company, for two performances during the Expo 2010 Shanghai.

On June 19 and 20, City Contemporary Dance Company artistic director Willy Tsao will bring his creation of DELT, a dance gala, to Shanghai Times Square, and on June 25 at the Shanghai Grand Theater, the dance company will present Tales of Two Cities-Hong Kong-Shanghai-Eileen Chang.

Eileen Chang (1920-1995) was one of the most influential Chinese writers of the 20th century, whose works have inspired numerous award-winning films, including Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. She lived and worked in Shanghai and Hong Kong during times of political turmoil. Her stories, mostly short fiction, reveal an unsettling, probing and contemporary sensibility. The stories tackle sexual politics and are rich in psychological ambiguity.

Inspired from a rare photo of the writer during her final years in the United States and texts from her most well-known stories, four-time Hong Kong Dance Award winner Helen Lai created Tales of Two Cities especially for the Expo. Lai, critically acclaimed for her emotionally charged dance theatre, reconstructs the writer's life and times with intriguing flashbacks to her golden days.

"Eileen Chang was a prodigy - her best works were all written when she was in her 20s. How could one have such deep observations at such young age? She was really a very sensitive person," Lai said. "In my production, I try to present my impressions of Eileen Chang, or to imagine about her from a woman's point of view."