Yang Liping Performing Arts Center

Located in Dali, The Yang Liping Performing Arts Center sits on the fertile plateau between the Cangshan mountain range and Erhai lake, the surrounding site experiences a boundless relationship between earth and sky. Tempered weather by the low latitude and high elevation create a unique life style of local people life. People are dancing on the farmland and singing inside mountains. Outdoors life becomes a particular life style for local people.

Inspired by local nature and climate, the performance center uses a composition of big canopy roof and flowing topography to invite users into an open plaza. The open plaza is met with a theater box that, when active, transforms the open plaza into an interior-exterior performance space. This performance space uses the blurred boundary between landscape and stage to also explore and erase the boundaries between performer and spectator. A few tree house towers will bring people up to top of the roof and down to the underneath the hills.

Inspired by Chinese Yin Yang theory, an open plaza underneath the canopy roof is generated by both an outdoor amphitheater– Yang and an indoor theater -- Yin, where become a central stage once the huge sliding door is opened. The big canopy is floating above ground forming a roof-space to build a tension with a few landscape hills. People are following throughout the building from in and out, top and bottom. Overall experience of building strongly reflects local people’s life style and Chinese “wander” theory.