Xu Minghao

His ten planets divide three in fire, three in air, two in earth and two in water, an even spread with nothing scarce anywhere in it. Nothing dominates and nothing is missing. Xu Minghao sings and dances in a group, which is a trade where the individual is both the product and a thirteenth of it, and where the part of the work people actually watch is done without words at all.

The Sun sits at fifteen degrees of Scorpio, the sign that gives least away about what it is doing, while the Moon, Jupiter and Uranus group across nine degrees of Aquarius. Scorpio conceals and Aquarius stands at a deliberate angle to the room it is in. For a performer inside a large group, those two together describe somebody present in everything and legible in none of it, which is a workable position and a lonely one.

The Sun stands awkwardly against Saturn seven hundredths of a degree short of exact, the closest pairing anywhere in it: identity against limit, permanently out of step and with no distance between them. The Moon sits conjunct Uranus at two fifths of a degree, so private feeling is fused to the planet that refuses to repeat itself. Saturn, the one planet doing the restricting, is also the only retrograde one. For a dancer judged on how precisely he matches the performers beside him, identity permanently out of step with limit is a demanding thing to carry.

Jupiter closed a twelve year circuit on 15 February 2021, back where it began in Aquarius, when he was twenty three. That is only the second lap his chart has completed. Aquarius counts distance from the centre rather than progress towards it, which for somebody working in a form built on precise unison is an odd measure and possibly the right one. His Moon is five degrees into Aquarius at noon, with the sign before it still possible, Capricorn instead, so whether the private half of the chart wants to stand apart or to keep account is left open by an hour nobody recorded. For a dancer, the Capricorn reading would be the more demanding of the two.