March Forward March Forward

The main part of this work is made up by more than 1000 pairs of ballet shoes. The shoes were collected from The National Ballet of China. It is a 6 meters high and 2.5 meters in diameter conical installation. Each pair of these old ballet shoes carries a unique story of a dancer, and these old shoes are the representation of the beauty and classics of ballet dance. The sound of ballet shoes hitting the ground is reverberated in the exhibition space.
One part of this artwork consists of interviews with Beijing Senior Citizens Activities Center towards the topic of growth, memory, dream, and reality and the classic clips from the ballet dance Red Detachment of Women and Swan Lake by National Ballet of China. Ballet dance is a sublime art form which keeps most of the ordinary people away from it. However, senior dancers are moving forward step by step with their non-professional ballet moves and postures, which shows their courage of chasing dream. Another part of this artwork is a black and white video clip. In this video clip, a senior dancer wearing ballet shoes is stepping forward and bearing all her weight on her foot. (written by Jiang Jie)