2009 marked the first choreographic “homecoming” by Shen Wei and his company, which with Part III: Silk Road unveils the so-called “jewel of the crown” by Re-Triptych.
Part III follows the international success of Part I (Tibet) and II (Angkor Wat), completing Shen Wei’s passionate tribute to the East after nearly 14 years of distant. In a cosmopolitan style, Triptych explores the religious, cultural and geographical complexity of each region treated, through a highly personal and profoundly modern choreographic and visual vocabulary.

Part I: Tibet (2006)
choreography: Shen Wei
Music: traditional Tibetan songs
lights: Jennifer Tipton
and costumes: Shen Wei
song: Ani Choying Dolma

Part I is a deeply personal dance and spiritual, which runs to the tune of Tibetan traditional songs , interpreted by the monk in exile Ani Choying Dolma, and on colorful fragments of a Mandala covering the entire stage. In choreographic movements, one recognizes the influence of some elements typical of the culture and geography of Tibetan steppe such as oxygen deficiency and reduced sense of gravity.
Referring to Part I, the Boston Globe speaks of a space where “purity and nirvana become one thing, “while John Rockwell writes on the New York Times that” dance is brilliant, and energetically overwhelming motives.”

Part II: Angkor Wat, Cambodia (2007)
choreography: Shen Wei
lights: Jennifer Tipton
scenes and costumes: Shen Wei
music: John Tavener, Tears of the Angels,
Cambodian traditional music
Shen Wei’s original recordings
and images recorded
at Angor Wat: Shen Wei

Part II is a large-scale work that combines two of Shen Wei’s characteristic styles: tableaux vivants and transference. Influenced by Shen Wei’s studies on traditional Cambodian dances, the peculiar formation of banana trees in Angkor Wat, the Buddhist and Hindu signs imprinted on the walls at the time of the ancient empire, Part II is “a work whose beauty is of such a uniqueness as to leave the audience literally breathless “(Le Devoir). The work shows the characteristic surrealism of Shen Wei: ultraterrene figures invoking the intricate and mysterious friezes of the walls of Angor Wat, sounds coming from missing and forgotten temples in the vastness of the jungle, recorded directly on site.

Part III: The New Silk Road (2009)
choreography: Shen Wei
luci: Jennifer Tipton
and costumes: Shen Wei
Music: David Lang
images: Shen Wei

Emphasizing the variety of languages, cultures and religious traditions that characterize China, Part III of the attributes the role of past, future and future referee, trends, ideas and peoples.
More than looking at the past, Shen Wei finds in the Silk Road the key to exploring the country’s future involvement in politics, commerce and global culture.
In the typical interdisciplinary style of Shen Wei, which sees modern dance with elements drawn from theater, visual arts, Chinese opera, philosophy and architecture, Part III is the largest and most dynamic of the three works, and uses images, sounds and other elements coming from the ancient Silk Road and from the hyper modern Chinese reality.
The uniqueness of the Re-Part III movement, virtuous, vibrant, and electrifying, is given by this dialogue between the past and the future, inspired by both the images and impressions of the ancient Silk Road and the experience of Shen Wei at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in radically transformed Beijing.