This is a dance film produced by Korean Dancer and Professor Hyonok Kim and her students for International Dance Video Festival 2017, at the company of Chinese poems on horses and our English translation. (The video is password protected. cityisland)

The poems are:

  • Bai, Juyi’s Selling My Horse Luo Ma (白居易 《卖骆马》）

《卖骆马》

五年花下醉骑行，
临卖回头嘶一声。
项籍顾骓犹解叹，
乐天别骆岂无情。

  • Du Fu’s Sick Horse （杜甫《病马》）
             《病马》

乘尔亦已久，天寒关塞深。
尘中老尽力，岁晚病伤心。
毛骨岂殊众？驯良犹至今。
物微意不浅，感动一沉吟。

Improvisation in translation (from our book A Break in Passing Clouds: Improvisations on Chinese Poems, 2014):

SELLING MY HORSE LUO MA  (Bai, Juyi) 

Luo Ma and I were
close companions
for many years

Even when
I was well sloshed
riding home under falling blossom
swaying in the saddle
his gait was slow and steady

In recent difficult times
through ill health and old age
I had to part with many
precious treasures

Finally there came a time
I realized Luo Ma
needed a better future

At the moment of being sold
he turned his head
and uttered so pitiful a neigh
that tears welled in my eyes

I felt the pain of Xiang Yu
when he turned his back
on his steed at a fated parting

How can I not feel grief
losing such an old friend

WHITE HORSE   (Du Fu)

We have been together
for some time now
beyond distant borders
where the weather has been
brutally inhospitable

I see how exhausted you are
my old friend

How many wars rebellions
have we seen sweeping
across our land leaving us
both tattered and aged
before our times

I stroke your nape
your neigh such emotions
run deep between us

We are boded as one

Even the immortals
in the heavens can hear
my deep sigh