In ancient Chinese myth, the one who creates humans from the earth is a creation goddess: Nüwa was walking along the Yellow River and suddenly discovered her reflection in the water. She decided to use the mud from the riverbed to sculpt figures like her own. Nüwa blew on the figures, and that's how life was breathed into them. The characters became small, intelligent and dexterous, living things that could walk and talk. Nüwa called them "Ren", meaning 'human'.

WHIRLING LADDER | UPRIGHT is the second creation in the WHIRLING LADDER series, in which choreographer Chun Zhang continues her practice of 'embodied process'. This piece addresses the question "how does the spine deal with gravity over time?", drawing inspiration from the human developmental stages, it explores the physical, mental and spiritual significance of the human body's unique process of uprightness and it celebrates the animal, humane, divine beauty of women's backs with a minimalist spinal movement derived from somatic research and choreography: a poetic journey of the body rising from the earth and dancing with the three-dimensional force, meanwhile the female body is the earth where human arises.