The V&A has commissioned Chinese artist and designer Rui Xu to create a music and dance performance for the Friday Late Event, called ‘Sky In Their Eyes: The Antelope in a Vanishing Landscape.’

This work will be performed live for the very first time on the evening of 24 November 2017 at the Raphael Cartoons Gallery V&A as part of Sino Flux: A celebration of the contemporary art, design, sounds and states of China.

The performance will explore the proud and gentle antelope family, whose wild habitat is fast disappearing through urbanisation and slaughter by man. Rui Xu reinterprets the antelope family, endowing them with the traditional Chinese aesthetic character of ‘Junzi,’ which has a similar meaning to a gentle man. Their habitat was once vast, yet with the expansion of cities it is quickly disappearing. As well as the deterioration of their environment and lack of food, they also face slaughter from man.

Rui Xu’s unique costumes, animal masks and specially composed music and dance, will tell the story of hope and sadness through the eyes of these magnificent antelopes who have stood proudly as wardens of the land and existed harmoniously with nature for thousands of years.

The 11 dancers come from the UK and many other countries around the world, and together with Spanish musician Javier Murugarren and Rui Xu, they create this woeful but beautiful story.

Dancers: Lauren Sheerman, Tuan Ly, Victoria Rucinska, Antonia Pantazatou, Robert Hesp, Rossana Los, Amy Grubb.

Choreographer: Amy Grubb

Performance times: 24th November – 7.00 pm, 8.00 pm, 9.00 pm
at the Raphael Cartoon Gallery, V&A, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL