The Oct. 27 and 28 premiere screenings of “Dancing with the Dead: Red Pine and the Art of Translation” at the Rose Theatre in Port Townsend featured not only the film’s producer and director, Rocky Friedman and Ward Serrill, but also Spring Cheng, who created its musical score, and Port Townsend’s own Bill Porter, a.k.a. “Red Pine,” the subject of the film.

After the film screened on Oct. 28, Serrill solicited reactions from the audience, which included one viewer who loved seeing the locations that Porter, and the historic Chinese poets whose works he’d translated, had written about.

Serrill expressed his appreciation to the Chinese film crews who’d accompanied Porter when he returned to the Chinese mountains and who shared their footage with him. He admitted that Porter had few photos, and no home movies, of either his youth in America or his time in China, which also made the contributions of Seattle animator Drew Christie necessary.

Serrill likewise touted Cheng as contributing a needed “feminine presence,” in addition to her musical score, and just as Porter was wont to cite the role of random happenstance in his life, so too did Serrill recount his introduction to Cheng as serendipitous, since they met on a ferry ride to the same dance program, where she revealed that she composes songs for historic Chinese poetry.

Just as Porter had survived an abusive father, Cheng recalled the “collective trauma” of growing up in China during its “cultural revolution,” which she saw as a desecration of Chinese culture.

Even with the scarcity of food at the time, Cheng saved up her lunch money, as a little girl, to buy books of poetry, which had been made rare and expensive.

“I gobbled them down like food,” Cheng said.

Although Cheng acknowledged the material prosperity and modern conveniences afforded by China’s decades of industrialization, she also asserted that it has awakened a spiritual hunger in the Chinese people — for Buddhism, Taoism and even the practice of hermitage — which she praised Porter for meeting with “an Eastern spirit, but a Western understanding as well.”

While Cheng noted that poetry was considered an obligatory discipline among the statesmen and political advisors of historic China, Porter offered a tongue-in-cheek assertion that alcohol is required to compose the songs for such poetry, since those poems are never notated musically.

Porter compared viewing his own biographical film to listening to one’s own voice on a recording, “except instead of asking, ‘Do I really sound like that?’ I’m left wondering, ‘Does my life really look like that from the outside?’”

Porter was pleased to report that not only has the hermit population of China increased dramatically over the decades, but it’s also become more educated, as what he deemed “typical devotees” have gone from possessing some high school education to frequently being university-level dropouts, to the point that he considers Chinese hermitage to be “spiritual grad school,” especially since he estimated that an average Chinese hermitage lasts between three to five years.

“After that, 95 percent of them come down from the mountains,” Porter said. “Many of them went up to the mountains to find their own voice, and they gain spiritual insights that they return to share.”

Porter described his journey as slightly different, since he credits his hermitage with teaching him how to adopt a new voice with each set of translations he conducts, each for a different author.

When Serrill called Porter out for taking on more translation work, after Porter had insisted he’d retired, Porter chuckled as he referred to his un-retirement as “another thing I’ve failed at.”

Porter alerted listeners of KPTZ 91.9 FM in Port Townsend to keep an ear out for the station’s upcoming airings of one of his old radio programs, recorded in Eastern Asia, as he recalled how Chinese hermits remain among “the most welcoming people” he’s ever met.

“If you show up and say homage to Buddha, somebody always appears eventually, with the biggest smile on their face,” Porter said. “Before you know it, they’ve started a fire and are making noodles from scratch. By definition, they don’t meet new people very often, so they’re usually happy to see you.”

Porter estimated that at least 60 percent of the hermits he met were women, of whom 90 percent lived in master-disciple pairings, whereas most of the men he met who lived with other men as hermits were “brother” co-disciples.

“Since male children are regarded as their parents’ social security, it’s a bit easier for women to embrace such a spiritual path,” Porter said. “Plus, the family gains spiritual merit if their daughters turn to that faith.”

Serrill ultimately hopes to make “Dancing with the Dead” available not only online, but also to educational programs, and he advised fans of the film to text “redpine” to 66866 to receive updates on the film’s progress toward a broader release.

In the meantime, Porter has been grateful to have his works published by Copper Canyon in Port Townsend and Empty Bowl in Chimacum.