Choreographer Sang Jijia from China was at TNUA last year recreating "Sticks," a work that students staged at the School of Dance's 2013 year-end production.
Mr. Sang Jijia, who studied with William Forsythe and worked with the Forsythe Company as choreographer and dancer until 2006, said stick figures are commonly used by dancers to record dance.
He has been using this tool since he started learning to dance. The circles and sticks forming the figures have no expressions and carry no significances, and the readers must fill them up with their own emotions and meanings.
"Sticks" makes use of the contrast between black and white to create a texture and represents the two-dimensional stick figures with the language of dance, he said.
Mr. Sang Jijia, an ethnic Tibetan Chinese, was hailed in 1998 by the province of Guangdong, China as a “star of the next century.” He became the first dancer selected by the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative in 2002.
He left Forsythe's company and returned to China in 2006. Sang is now Resident Artist of BeijingDance/ LDTX.
Mr. Sang Jijia said there is no place for "laziness" in the world of dance, because a dancer improves through constant training and learning. Dancers have to practice for hours daily, but the hard work is not meant to help them make money. The hard work is all about perseverance and devotion to one's creative work.