Large-scale dance performance Soul Dragon was presented in Hong Kong Friday (May 13th) as part of the French cultural festival activities.

Soul Dragon was jointly created by Melting Spot, a French Hip Hop dance company, and the Opera and Dance Academy of Shanghai.

The performance is a percussive encounter between Chinese Dance Opera and French Hip Hop. It brings on stage 15 French and Chinese artists and features dazzling Hip Hop dance techniques melded with stylistic elements of Chinese opera and circus performance.

Soul Dragon embodies the juxtaposition and dialogue between two worlds that attract while maintaining mutual tension.

It is a skirmish and a sharing between two artistic disciplines: France and China, modernity and tradition, Chinese Opera and Hip Hop.

The show was first presented under the auspices of the Lille 2004 European Capitale of Culture and the Year of China in France.

Melting Spot is one of the first French Hip Hop dance companies to create a distinctive artistic approach distinguished by a marriage of urban dance and other aesthetic and cultural elements.

The 13th "Le French May 2005" -- French cultural festival -- opened in Hong Kong on May 1 and will end on June 4. The festival will also offer a series of other activities such as paintings and photography exhibitions.

Editor: Wing