fluktor -|||- study - office - newsletter October 17, 2005

Xinhua, October 1, 2005 Saturday 5:00 PM EST
Chinese official says China Festival to enhance Sino-US ties

The Festival of China, an unprecedented culture event cosponsored by the United States and China, will strengthen exchange, mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation between the peoples of the two countries, said a senior Chinese official on Saturday.

"This event is aimed to introduce Chinese arts and culture to the US public, and make them understand the internal feelings and spiritual status of the contemporary Chinese people," Chinese Culture Minister Sun Jiazheng told Xinhua ahead of the opening ceremony of the event, which will take place Saturday night at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts here.

In his view, culture acts like flowing water which touches the human heart in a subtle way, and facilitates com-munications between hearts of the people as a "soft power."

"This kind of exchange and communication can not be replaced by other means," Sun noted.

Although the United States and China are vastly different in many ways, both of them have great ethnic and culture diversity, he said.

Meanwhile, the differences between the two countries also make themselves attractive to each other, said the minister.

Sun noted that Chinese President Hu Jintao and his US counterpart George W. Bush agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation at the UN Summit last month and Bush will visit China within the year.

It is in the fundamental interests of both sides to further coordination and cooperation in international and regional affairs and it will contribute to world peace and development, he said.

Sun said the peoples of the United States and China always have good impressions for each other.

For example, he said the US cartoon figure Micky Mouse has been a longtime favorite among Chinese children and Chinese basketball superstar Yao Ming are now well-known in the United States.

"We hope to work closely with the US side to usher in a new era for culture exchange between the two countries and the bilateral relations as a whole," said Sun.

The Festival of China, which runs through October in the Kennedy Center, is the largest-ever Sino-US culture event.

During the period, an unprecedented number of China's finest performers and visionaries, nearly 900 in all, will be on the stage to entertain US audience.

The event, which has been prepared for nearly three years, is expected to feature an extraordinary lineup of the most acclaimed Chinese dancers, musicians, actors, acrobats and puppeteers.

******************

The Washington Post, September 30, 2005

IT IS one of the world's great cultures; more accurately, it is many of the world's great cultures. China is the oldest continuous civilization on the globe, a nation of more than 50 ethnic peoples and 1,500 dialects -- more than 100 lan-guages in the province of Fujian alone -- whose traditional arts, costumes, music and metaphors embrace an almost inconceivable variety. Even in the age of video and satellite television, much of Chinese art remains mysterious to American audiences, even as its quality, particularly of its dance and multimedia art, is reaching new heights.

But not here. Throughout October, an unprecedented number of China's finest performers and visionaries, nearly 900 in all, will be on stage at the Kennedy Center. The Festival of China, four years in the making and featuring an extraor-dinary lineup of the most acclaimed dancers, musicians, actors, acrobats and puppeteers, is the single largest celebration of Chinese performing arts ever hosted by a single institution, even in China itself. Painstakingly assembled by Kennedy Center Vice President Alicia Adams, the schedule includes eight premieres and more than a dozen free shows as well as an open-air marketplace, exhibits and family activities, and a glimpse of what has been described as "the eighth wonder of the world," the terra cotta warriors of Emperor Qin Shihuang.

I traveled to China last year and was fortunate to see not only the warriors but several of the country's performing companies; the following "postcards" from some of the cities I visited were taken from my journals of the trip.

In conjunction with the festival, Adams has helped many of the troupes arrange appearances in other U.S. cities -- in some cases, fairly extensive tours -- because she believes that as the nation's capital of performing arts, the Kennedy Center should also serve as the doorway into America for artists from other nations.

For Festival of China schedule details and dates, see Page 36. Tickets for the performances, where needed, are available at the Kennedy Center box office, by phone at 202-467-4600 or online at kennedy-center.org/china.

The performances by the China National Peking Opera Company and the Beijing People's Art Theatre will have supertitles, and others will be interpreted for visually or hearing-impaired patrons. Two weeks' notice is requested to arrange for the aids, but the Kennedy Center will try to accommodate those with less time; call 202-416-8727.

************************

State Department, September 9, 2005
More than 600 To Perform in Washington "Festival of China"; Festival will be largest-ever celebration in U.S. of Chinese cultural arts
Todd Bullock, Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- In October, the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Center for Performing Arts will host the largest-ever cele-bration in the United States of Chinese cultural arts.

"This is more than a performing arts festival. We offer events, from acrobatics to kite-flying activities, a drumming extravaganza, film series, a re-creation of Beijing market fairs and a photographic display of Beijing," Alicia Adams, the Kennedy Center's vice president of international programming, said in a September 8 interview with the Washington File.

More than 600 performers in Chinese dance, music, traditional opera, contemporary theater and other arts from such cultural centers as Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Xian will be appearing throughout October for the Kennedy Cen-ter's Festival of China.

The festival, co-sponsored by China's Ministry of Culture, will feature more than 50 performances inside and outside the Kennedy Center and will begin October 1 with a introductory sampling of performances and a custom-made fireworks show by gunpowder artist Cai Guo Qing that will require 7,350 pyrotechnic devices, 9 kilograms of gunpowder and more than 1,300 yards of fuse.

The Kennedy Center has enjoyed "excellent cooperation" with China's Ministry of Culture for the past four years in preparing for the festival, according to Adams.

TERRA COTTA WARRIORS
Adams also said the Kennedy Center will be exhibiting three terra cotta warriors from the Qin dynasty during the festival. Found in 1974 after 2,200 years in underground vaults, these statues are archaeological wonders: one warrior is 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 419 pounds, while one horse weighs 750 pounds.

"China enjoys 5,000 years of history and cultural diversity that stems from its vast population," Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser said on his organization's Web site. "What we're presenting is a comprehensive sampling of the best that China has to offer, large and small ensembles from many regions of China, as well as artists of Chinese descent from the United States."

DANCE
One of the featured performances at the festival will be the Washington premiere of the full-length ballet Raise the Red Lantern, which portrays the tragic lives of concubines under a feudal lord. The National Ballet of China will perform the piece under the direction of Zhang Yimou, who also directed the film upon which the ballet is based. The production includes more than 214 costumes. Rooted in the Russian classical tradition, Chinese ballet has adopted its own style since the 1990s.

Modern dance has also become a vibrant art form in China ever since the country opened its doors to visits from U.S. performers such as Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham and Paul Taylor. Modern dance companies from Beijing, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Shanghai and the New York-based Shen Wei Dance Arts will be performing modern masterpieces at the festival. Shen Wei in particular has gathered international recognition for its performances, characterized by a hybrid of dance, theater, Chinese opera, painting and sculpture.

Doudou Huang, who combined dance and kung fu movements at the closing ceremony of the 2004 Athens Olympic games and has been called the "Baryshnikov of China," will perform with his own Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble in Six Dance Imageries of Zhou Dynasty. The choreography will be accompanied by U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award (Oscar) winner Tan Dun's original score, which was inspired by the sounds of Hubei imperial chime bells.

MUSIC
Music enthusiasts will be able to see Shenzhen pianists -- He Qizhen, Zuo Zhang, and Zhang Haochen -- perform with their virtuosic skills and interact with U.S. counterparts in a record-breaking gathering of 100 pianists.

Members of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and 250 drummers from the Washington area will also join in an outdoor performance of four works by Chinese composers.

OPERA
Another flagship troupe at the Kennedy Center will be the China National Peking Opera, which will perform Female Generals of the Yang Family. Based on the history of the Northern Song dynasty (960 -1127 AD) but fictionalized for the stage, the opera shows brave widows leading the army to victory through ingenious military maneuvers, with choreo-graphed fight scenes.

The presentation will be accompanied by multiple educational events to explain the rich history of Beijing opera, which goes back more than two centuries, to U.S. audiences. The performances will include English subtitles.

THEATER
New York Chinese-American artist Ping Chong and the Shaanxi Folk Art Theater were commissioned by the Ken-nedy Center to premiere their collaborative theater project, Cathay: Three Tales of China.

The performance combines video art, over 140 traditional rod and shadow puppets and live actors to recount the historical suicide of Yang Guifei, a royal concubine in the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD); to portray survival during World War II; and to paint a contemporary portrait of China.

Closing the entire festival will be Teahouse, a three-act play about sweeping changes in China's past century. The Kennedy Center performance is accompanied by newly edited English subtitles. The play follows the proprietors and customers of a teahouse during three seismic shifts in China's political history: 1898, when reformers failed to strengthen the Qing dynasty; 1911, at the founding of the Chinese Republic; and 1948, during the Chinese civil war.

The original set design from the Beijing premiere in 1957 will be restored in China and brought to the United States.

U.S. TOUR OF SELECT PERFORMERS
In addition to Washington performances, the festival will also include a tour of select performers such as the Chinese National Acrobatic Troupe and the Shaanxi Folk Art Theater to Los Angeles, New York and other locations in the United States to expose U.S. audiences to the extraordinary panoply of Chinese art and culture and to expose the performers to other U.S. venues, according to Adams.

"The Kennedy Center is also engaged in public outreach with community leaders to get the public involved in the festival through free performances and other activities," she said.

The Kennedy Center is a memorial to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy as well as the nation's busiest arts facility, presenting more than 3,000 performances each year.

For more information, see the Kennedy Center's Web site on the festival.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

__________________________________________

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For postings earlier than 2005-02-23 please go to:
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	October 16, 2005: [achtung! kunst] Kennedy Center for Performing Arts: The Festival of China

	Xinhua, October 1, 2005 Saturday 5:00 PM EST Chinese official says China Festival to enhance Sino-US ties The Festival of China, an unprecedented culture event cosponsored by the United States and China, will strengthen exchange, mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation between the peoples of the two countries, said a senior Chinese official on Saturday. "This event is aimed to introduce Chinese arts and culture to the US public, and make them understand the internal feelings and spiritual status of the contemporary Chinese people," Chinese Culture Minister Sun Jiazheng told Xinhua ahead of the opening ceremony of the event, which will take place Saturday night at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts here. In his view, culture acts like flowing water which touches the human heart in a subtle way, and facilitates com-munications between hearts of the people as a "soft power." "This kind of exchange and communication can not be replaced by other means," Sun noted. Although the United States and China are vastly different in many ways, both of them have great ethnic and culture diversity, he said. Meanwhile, the differences between the two countries also make themselves attractive to each other, said the minister. Sun noted that Chinese President Hu Jintao and his US counterpart George W. Bush agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation at the UN Summit last month and Bush will visit China within the year. It is in the fundamental interests of both sides to further coordination and cooperation in international and regional affairs and it will contribute to world peace and development, he said. Sun said the peoples of the United States and China always have good impressions for each other. For example, he said the US cartoon figure Micky Mouse has been a longtime favorite among Chinese children and Chinese basketball superstar Yao Ming are now well-known in the United States. "We hope to work closely with the US side to usher in a new era for culture exchange between the two countries and the bilateral relations as a whole," said Sun. The Festival of China, which runs through October in the Kennedy Center, is the largest-ever Sino-US culture event. During the period, an unprecedented number of China's finest performers and visionaries, nearly 900 in all, will be on the stage to entertain US audience. The event, which has been prepared for nearly three years, is expected to feature an extraordinary lineup of the most acclaimed Chinese dancers, musicians, actors, acrobats and puppeteers. **************** The Washington Post, September 30, 2005 IT IS one of the world's great cultures; more accurately, it is many of the world's great cultures. China is the oldest continuous civilization on the globe, a nation of more than 50 ethnic peoples and 1,500 dialects -- more than 100 lan-guages in the province of Fujian alone -- whose traditional arts, costumes, music and metaphors embrace an almost inconceivable variety. Even in the age of video and satellite television, much of Chinese art remains mysterious to American audiences, even as its quality, particularly of its dance and multimedia art, is reaching new heights. But not here. Throughout October, an unprecedented number of China's finest performers and visionaries, nearly 900 in all, will be on stage at the Kennedy Center. The Festival of China, four years in the making and featuring an extraor-dinary lineup of the most acclaimed dancers, musicians, actors, acrobats and puppeteers, is the single largest celebration of Chinese performing arts ever hosted by a single institution, even in China itself. Painstakingly assembled by Kennedy Center Vice President Alicia Adams, the schedule includes eight premieres and more than a dozen free shows as well as an open-air marketplace, exhibits and family activities, and a glimpse of what has been described as "the eighth wonder of the world," the terra cotta warriors of Emperor Qin Shihuang. I traveled to China last year and was fortunate to see not only the warriors but several of the country's performing companies; the following "postcards" from some of the cities I visited were taken from my journals of the trip. In conjunction with the festival, Adams has helped many of the troupes arrange appearances in other U.S. cities -- in some cases, fairly extensive tours -- because she believes that as the nation's capital of performing arts, the Kennedy Center should also serve as the doorway into America for artists from other nations. For Festival of China schedule details and dates, see Page 36. Tickets for the performances, where needed, are available at the Kennedy Center box office, by phone at 202-467-4600 or online at kennedy-center.org/china. The performances by the China National Peking Opera Company and the Beijing People's Art Theatre will have supertitles, and others will be interpreted for visually or hearing-impaired patrons. Two weeks' notice is requested to arrange for the aids, but the Kennedy Center will try to accommodate those with less time; call 202-416-8727. ********************** State Department, September 9, 2005 More than 600 To Perform in Washington "Festival of China"; Festival will be largest-ever celebration in U.S. of Chinese cultural arts Todd Bullock, Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- In October, the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Center for Performing Arts will host the largest-ever cele-bration in the United States of Chinese cultural arts. "This is more than a performing arts festival. We offer events, from acrobatics to kite-flying activities, a drumming extravaganza, film series, a re-creation of Beijing market fairs and a photographic display of Beijing," Alicia Adams, the Kennedy Center's vice president of international programming, said in a September 8 interview with the Washington File. More than 600 performers in Chinese dance, music, traditional opera, contemporary theater and other arts from such cultural centers as Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Xian will be appearing throughout October for the Kennedy Cen-ter's Festival of China. The festival, co-sponsored by China's Ministry of Culture, will feature more than 50 performances inside and outside the Kennedy Center and will begin October 1 with a introductory sampling of performances and a custom-made fireworks show by gunpowder artist Cai Guo Qing that will require 7,350 pyrotechnic devices, 9 kilograms of gunpowder and more than 1,300 yards of fuse. The Kennedy Center has enjoyed "excellent cooperation" with China's Ministry of Culture for the past four years in preparing for the festival, according to Adams. TERRA COTTA WARRIORS Adams also said the Kennedy Center will be exhibiting three terra cotta warriors from the Qin dynasty during the festival. Found in 1974 after 2,200 years in underground vaults, these statues are archaeological wonders: one warrior is 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 419 pounds, while one horse weighs 750 pounds. "China enjoys 5,000 years of history and cultural diversity that stems from its vast population," Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser said on his organization's Web site. "What we're presenting is a comprehensive sampling of the best that China has to offer, large and small ensembles from many regions of China, as well as artists of Chinese descent from the United States." DANCE One of the featured performances at the festival will be the Washington premiere of the full-length ballet Raise the Red Lantern, which portrays the tragic lives of concubines under a feudal lord. The National Ballet of China will perform the piece under the direction of Zhang Yimou, who also directed the film upon which the ballet is based. The production includes more than 214 costumes. Rooted in the Russian classical tradition, Chinese ballet has adopted its own style since the 1990s. Modern dance has also become a vibrant art form in China ever since the country opened its doors to visits from U.S. performers such as Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham and Paul Taylor. Modern dance companies from Beijing, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Shanghai and the New York-based Shen Wei Dance Arts will be performing modern masterpieces at the festival. Shen Wei in particular has gathered international recognition for its performances, characterized by a hybrid of dance, theater, Chinese opera, painting and sculpture. Doudou Huang, who combined dance and kung fu movements at the closing ceremony of the 2004 Athens Olympic games and has been called the "Baryshnikov of China," will perform with his own Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble in Six Dance Imageries of Zhou Dynasty. The choreography will be accompanied by U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award (Oscar) winner Tan Dun's original score, which was inspired by the sounds of Hubei imperial chime bells. MUSIC Music enthusiasts will be able to see Shenzhen pianists -- He Qizhen, Zuo Zhang, and Zhang Haochen -- perform with their virtuosic skills and interact with U.S. counterparts in a record-breaking gathering of 100 pianists. Members of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and 250 drummers from the Washington area will also join in an outdoor performance of four works by Chinese composers. OPERA Another flagship troupe at the Kennedy Center will be the China National Peking Opera, which will perform Female Generals of the Yang Family. Based on the history of the Northern Song dynasty (960 -1127 AD) but fictionalized for the stage, the opera shows brave widows leading the army to victory through ingenious military maneuvers, with choreo-graphed fight scenes. The presentation will be accompanied by multiple educational events to explain the rich history of Beijing opera, which goes back more than two centuries, to U.S. audiences. The performances will include English subtitles. THEATER New York Chinese-American artist Ping Chong and the Shaanxi Folk Art Theater were commissioned by the Ken-nedy Center to premiere their collaborative theater project, Cathay: Three Tales of China. The performance combines video art, over 140 traditional rod and shadow puppets and live actors to recount the historical suicide of Yang Guifei, a royal concubine in the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD); to portray survival during World War II; and to paint a contemporary portrait of China. Closing the entire festival will be Teahouse, a three-act play about sweeping changes in China's past century. The Kennedy Center performance is accompanied by newly edited English subtitles. The play follows the proprietors and customers of a teahouse during three seismic shifts in China's political history: 1898, when reformers failed to strengthen the Qing dynasty; 1911, at the founding of the Chinese Republic; and 1948, during the Chinese civil war. The original set design from the Beijing premiere in 1957 will be restored in China and brought to the United States. U.S. TOUR OF SELECT PERFORMERS In addition to Washington performances, the festival will also include a tour of select performers such as the Chinese National Acrobatic Troupe and the Shaanxi Folk Art Theater to Los Angeles, New York and other locations in the United States to expose U.S. audiences to the extraordinary panoply of Chinese art and culture and to expose the performers to other U.S. venues, according to Adams. "The Kennedy Center is also engaged in public outreach with community leaders to get the public involved in the festival through free performances and other activities," she said. The Kennedy Center is a memorial to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy as well as the nation's busiest arts facility, presenting more than 3,000 performances each year. For more information, see the Kennedy Center's Web site on the festival. (The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.) __________________ with kind regards, Matthias Arnold (Art-Eastasia list) http://www.chinaresource.org http://www.fluktor.de __________________________________________ An archive of this list as well as an subscribe/unsubscribe facility is available at: http://listserv.uni-heidelberg.de/archives/art-eastasia.html For postings earlier than 2005-02-23 please go to: http://www.fluktor.de/study/office/newsletter.htm