Web touts opera
Traditional troupes using internet to boost ancient art form
I am impressed that Chinese artists have transformed during the past decades.” David J. Fraher, president and CEO, Arts Midwest
David J. Fraher, president and CEO of Arts Midwest, a nonprofit arts organization from the United States, arrived at the Guangzhou Opera House on a recent morning.
From 10 am to 5 pm, he watched a variety of shows from traditional operas to acrobatics, jazz and puppetry, by nearly 20 Chinese performing arts companies.
Fraher’s nonprofit organization is based in Minneapolis, and he was in Guangzhou to attend the 2017 China International Performing Arts Fair and Silk Road International League of Theaters Annual Conference, held over Dec 11-14. The event attracted more than 400 people from 32 countries, including the US, France and Canada.
“I am impressed that Chinese artists have transformed during the past decades. They not just have great performing techniques but also are much more creative,” says Fraher, who has been in his field for about three decades.
During his first visit to China in 1998, he watched The Red Detachment of Women, staged by the National Ballet of China.
He has since often traveled to the country and nurtured partnerships with an array of cultural organizations and artists in China. By helping Chinese art companies tour the US, Arts Midwest’s cultural exchange programs with China have reached audiences and artists in more than 50 communities in the US, with total audience numbers hitting more than 1 million so far, Fraher says.
“We not only work with big companies and famous Chinese artists but also are interested in working with smaller art companies and young artists,” he says.
Art Midwest has brought an array of Chinese performing artists to the US, including Anda Union, a band from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and Beauty and Melody, a traditional Chinese music ensemble from Sichuan province. In March, it will organize a China tour of US rapper Dessa.
“Our goal is to ensure that, by removing as many practical barriers as possible, we will create a fertile ground for powerful cultural sharing and exchange between the touring artists and the communities they reach,” Fraher says.
When the Silk Road International League of Theaters was launched at the Tianqiao Performing Arts Center in Beijing in October 2016, Arts Midwest was among the first batch of members to join. The first batch of members consists of two international organizations and 56 theaters from 33 countries and regions.
Initiated by the China Arts and Entertainment Group, the largest State-owned company in China in the field of entertainment and arts exhibition, which was founded in 2004, the Silk Road International League of Theaters serves as a large platform for performing arts that aims to promote cultural exchanges between China and other countries.
Li Jinsheng, president of China Arts and Entertainment Group, says 32 theaters from 13 countries have joined the league this year, including Indonesia’s arts promoter institution Ciputra Artpreneur, Ivan Vazov National Theater of Bulgaria and Japanese ballet company Matsuyama Ballet.
“The Silk Road International League of Theaters offers a platform to our members from all over the world to communicate. Since the birth of the league, we have introduced many performances by foreign troupes and helped Chinese artists perform in theaters abroad,” says Li, giving examples such as the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre’s tour in China with the ballet, Romeo and Juliet, and Belarus Janka Kupała Theater’s tour in the country with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull.
Song Guanlin, general manager of the China Oriental Performing Arts Group, which presented a show of Chinese folk dance and music at the Guangzhou event, says: “China is a big art market and the league fills in the gap between the art markets of China and the world.”
“Chinese artists tell their own stories, which embodies Chinese culture. We need to work harder to reach out to the global audience.”
Besides, the league members also have exchange programs, such as training actors and actresses and staging coproductions.
The China Performing Arts Agency, which is under China Arts and Entertainment Group, is hosting an education program of theater management in Guangzhou through Jan 12, inviting theater management masters of the league from both home and abroad to give classes.
Li says coproductions are crucial to connections among league members.
The Guangzhou Opera House, which was designed by award-winning Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, opened in 2010 and has produced six operas, such as Carmen, Tosca and La Traviata, in collaboration with top opera companies from around the world, including Rome Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera House and Komische Oper Berlin.
In 2018, the Guangzhou Opera House will premiere its original opera, Marco Polo, based on the story of the Venetian explorer who traveled along the ancient Silk Road.
League members also shared their views on expanding to other kinds of art forms.
“We share a similar goal with the Silk Road International League of Theaters — that is to promote communication, preserve and promote traditional art forms,” says Spanish puppeteer Idoya Otegui, who is the general secretary of UNESCO’s International Puppetry Association.
Otegui has been with the association since 1986 and became the first woman to serve in that capacity in 2016 since the organization was established 88 years ago.
In Guangzhou, Otegui watched performances by Pingyang Puppetry Protection and Inheritance Center, Sichuan Huge Puppetry Theater and Yangzhou Puppetry Troupe.
Reflecting on what she saw, she says: “This old art form is well preserved in China. We will work together to promote the development of puppetry, especially in our efforts to appeal to the younger generation.” Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn