In January 2002, one of the most highly original contemporary British theatre companies, Kneehigh Theatre, toured Beijing and Shanghai with their thrilling performance of“The Red Shoes”. Presented by the British Council, which operates in China as the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy, together with the Centre of International Cultural Exchange in Beijing, and the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre in Shanghai, this powerfully visual performance sold out in both cities, seven performances in total. A story about freedom and joy, temptation and empty pride, which is sometimes dark and sometimes hilarious,“The Red Shoes”inspired and stimulated audiences with its creativity.

　　“The Red Shoes”was originally a grisly fairytale written by Hans Christian Andersen. The fairytale has been adapted many times over the years, notably in the famous Powell and Pressburger film (“Hong Wu Xie”) in which the ballerina, Moira Shearer, was doomed to dance forever in her red shoes. Kneehigh Theatre decided to return to the original story about an orphan girl who falls in love with a pair of red shoes and refuses to take them off. When she wears them to church she is condemmed to dance in them for the rest of her days, until the skin of her feet turns red and raw. Both humorous and macabre, the performance has a light tone that still gets to the dark heart of this tale of temptation, obsession and the fatal lure of the colour red.

　　Like the best fairytales it enthralls its audience and leaves them thinking of the messages within the story. Although it is a very old fairy tale the themes in“The Red Shoes”are still very relevant to modern life. Says director Emma Rice,“…my life chimes with the concerns of“The Red Shoes”; how do you balance your obsessions with what society expects of you? People try and put this girlsintosa box that’s acceptable, and that box doesn’t include the red shoes. I get the feeling that the same expectations surround women today. In that way,“The Red Shoes”is profoundly modern.”

　　The Kneehigh Theatre performance is both melodramatic and minimalistic and anything but conventional. With very little spoken language it is visually expressive, making it easily accessible to audiences from any nation. The story is told by hollow-eyed travelling performers who transform themselvessintosvarious characters throughout the play. Some of the originality of this performance comes from the way Kneehigh Theatre combines elements of a cabaret with thesgroupsdynamics of narrative theatre.

　　Kneehigh Theatre is a company of twenty years standing in the UK with a reputation for vigorous, inventive and popular work. A leading theatre company from Cornwall, an area in the UK, Kneehigh are proud of their Cornish identity, a place with strong local traditions of oral story telling, myth and folklore. Kneehigh have established a unique reputation in the UK both for their work, and the way they create it. Kneehigh Theatre create their performances in some of Cornwall’s most amazing locations–indoors, outdoors, down holes or in the sea. Very often, it is by, for and about the region from which it springs demonstrating that, as the famous Eurpean artist Miro said,“to be truly universal, you must be truly local”. The company draw inspiration from their local landscapes, history, people and culture and their performances are well received locally, nationally and internationally.

　　Kneehigh say their purpose is to“fire the imagination”by creating unforgettable theatre which explores storytelling through language, visual imagery, physicality, music, design and new writing, which challenges the barriers of convention whilst remaining accessible to audiences across boundaries of age and nationality.

　　“They've done such a wonderful job!”said Zhu Lin, a reporter from Beijing Today, about Kneehigh Theatre.“Their version of 'The Red Shoes’showed me a whole new angle for interpreting the theme of obsession.”

　　In both cities Kneehigh Theatre led workshops with local actors, exchanging theatrical ideas and techniques. Local actors said they were inspired and stimulated by the honest, direct, and playful style of acting, the creative ways themes were developed and the way Kneehigh worked–with actors and director working together rather than the director leading the process.