Reported by Hui Yao, Lecturer of Chinese Language
On December 3, 2025, the third workshop of the “2nd Chinese Theater Night” was successfully held in the AB Ballroom B. The event was organized by Hui Yao from the Language and Culture Center, in collaboration with the Curtain Call Drama Club, and sponsored by the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. The workshop invited DKU visiting scholar Ziying Cui as the workshop mentor, and drew participation from student actors, drama club members, and other theater enthusiasts.
Professor Cui started the workshop by reminding us that we were moving our bodies as pedestrians, not dancers. Students took off their shoes, walked in the space, then slowed down to pay attention to the feet: feeling the heel, the sole and the toe, and noticing how weight shifted across them. After walking, light running, and turning exercises, students remained in place with music and practiced shifting their weight, finding balance, and exploring movements toward and away from their center of gravity. Gentle stretches and a roll-down through the spine helped everyone gain clearer physical awareness.
After the warm-up, we moved to the core of the workshop: how to approach choreography through improvisation and movement patterns. Professor Cui first introduced how the body shifts between tension and softness, and how we could use this idea to improvise. “You can understand it as step and stop, tense and release, freeze and melt, or inhale and exhale,” said Professor Cui, “experience these ideas with your own body as you move and see which pair feel the most natural and honest to you.” She also demonstrated how to move through low, middle, and high levels to trace a u-shaped pathway. From there, we created a “cleaning scene” together. With music, students imagined their daily cleaning routine: sweeping something off a table, clearing space, or reaching to retrieve an object. These simple, familiar, and daily life-inspired gestures further helped students visualize the ideas of tension and release, as well as moving through different levels. Throughout this section, Professor Cui emphasized that the goal was not to move like dancers but to move as ourselves, drawing from actions that already exist in our daily lives.
In the next section, students were paired up to build short movement patterns of their own. Professor Cui demonstrated how to use body parts to “look,” that is, to use the elbows, shoulders, hands, fingers, knees, legs, or any other parts of your body to lead your movement. Using a structure that is A+A+B+A+B+C, each group came up with their movement patterns that integrated elements from earlier in the workshop: walking, looking back, shifting weight, breathing, leading with different body parts, or moving through different levels. Each pair of students developed their own short sequence, and some even created their own movement patterns.
The workshop ended with a happy, energetic line-up movement led by Professor Cui. Students left with a better sense of how the body moves and how everyday motions are dance.
第二届“中文戏剧之夜”工作坊系列之三：身体与舞蹈
2025年12月3日，昆山杜克大学第二届“中文戏剧之夜”第三场工作坊于AB Ballroom B顺利举行。本次活动由语言文化中心讲师姚卉与幕间行话剧社合作组织，由昆山杜克大学人文研究中心慷慨赞助，并邀请到昆山杜克大学访问学者崔梓滢老师担任工作坊导师。本次工作坊吸引了剧社成员、舞蹈课学生以及其他戏剧、舞蹈爱好者。
活动伊始，崔老师便提醒我们，我们是以“行人”而非舞者的方式调动身体。她指导同学们脱下鞋子在空间中走动，然后放慢速度，将注意力集中在双脚上，感受重心在脚跟、脚掌和脚趾之间的移动。在行走、慢跑等练习之后，学生们停留在原地，伴随着音乐感知重心的转移，寻找身体的平衡。随后的拉伸和脊柱的卷下、卷起也帮大家更清晰地感知自己的身体。
热身活动后，我们进入了工作坊的核心部分：即兴舞蹈与运用动作结构编舞。在即兴环节，崔老师展示了身体的收与放，并引导学生运用这一对概念进行创作。“你们可以把它理解为行进与停顿、收缩与延展、冻结与融化，或吸气与呼气，”她说，“用自己的身体去体验，看看哪一组概念对你来说最自然、最真实。”崔老师还示范了如何以U型的行动路径，在低、中、高三个动作水平间转换。以此为基础，同学们共同完成了一个“清洁场景”。在音乐中，学生们想象着与日常打扫有关的动作：把杂物从桌上扫开，整理腾出空间，伸手去够远处的东西等等。这些简单、熟悉的日常动作帮大家更好地理解身体的收与放、伸缩与延展，以及在不同动作水平间的移动。崔老师强调，这些练习的目标并非“像舞者一样跳舞”，而是从生活出发，用自己日常已有的方式在空间中行动。
在即兴环节之后，学生们两两一组，开始创作自己的一小段动作。崔老师向我们展示，不管是手肘、肩膀、手、手指还是膝盖或腿，身体的各个部位都能成为动作的引导者，都能“看”。以A+A+B+A+B+C的结构为基础，她教我们将工作坊中练习过的元素融入其中，由不同部位带动身体在低、中、高水平上移动，创作出属于自己的舞蹈动作。
本次工作坊在一段欢快的排舞中结束。在逐渐深入的练习中，同学们对自己的身体有了更清晰的感知，也意识到日常的行动本身就蕴含着舞蹈的可能。
