Burning Dreams

In the summer of 2000, filmmaker Wayne Peng travelled to Shanghai to find actors for a commercial. He went to the ‘Dreams 52’ dancing school, where old Liang Yi teaches an ambitious group of youngsters how to dance Broadway style: jazz dance, tap dance and rock-'n-roll. Peng is deeply affected by the students’ dedication and their enthusiasm for a dance form that may not be very unusual in the West, but that has always been considered countercultural in China. In BURNING DREAMS, Peng tells the life story of 70-year-old Liang Yi, who as a teenager was overwhelmed by Hollywood films and was determined to become the Gene Kelly of Taiwan. Yi’s favourite student, 30-year-old Yang Yang, is known as ‘the dancer who also sings’. She has devoted her life to realising her dream of becoming famous. A younger generation of dance students no longer sees jazz dance as a political or social statement, but simply as a way to express yourself as an individual. In beautiful black-and-white images, BURNING DREAMS, the Chinese ‘Fame’, exhibits the dancers’ will and zest.