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Scroll dance heads overseas
By Li Huizi and Wang Pan |
May 20, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
DENG Jun's dream is to make the well-known Chinese scroll painting "Along the River during Qingming Festival" come alive on the international dance stage.
The painting, which was created by the Northern Song (960-1127) Zhang Zeduan, offers glimpses of the institutions, economy, culture and customs in the Song capital - Bianjing (today's Kaifeng in Henan Province) - the most prosperous metropolis in the world at that time..
Deng, general manager of Guangdong Southern Cultural Development Co Ltd, plans to take his company's dance performance based on the painting to Canada next July. The troupe is currently touring China.
Toby Simkin, vice president and executive producer of the US Broadway-based Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment, says the market is promising and worth the big investment. A veteran Broadway producer, Simkin has produced, managed or marketed more than 150 productions over two decades, including Tony Award winning shows.
As China's cultural industry has reformed, state-run art troupes and performing companies, including Deng's, have gradually abandoned the "iron rice bowl" concept and now compete in the marketplace. They aim for the international arena and choreograph an increasing number of Chinese dramas, acrobatics, ballet and musicals to target an international audience and earn more profits overseas.
Domestic performing companies struck 25 deals with overseas agents at a week-long performing arts trade fair in Guangzhou last week. Contracts of more than 100 million yuan (US$14.7 million) were negotiated.
The Chinese original musical "Butterfly Lovers" will be introduced in Europe and the US; a traditional opera costume show will be taken to Australia the Cantonese opera "Red Boat," or "Hua Yue Ying," will open in Qatar; Chinese puppets will perform in Germany: the kung fu drama "The Soul of Shaolin" and acrobatic show "Journey to the West" will tour Europe.
Last year, Simkin took "Soul of Shaolin" to Broadway and the show was nominated for a Tony Award. He also took "A Dream of Red Mansions" by the Shanghai Ballet to New York's Lincoln Center last year. The ballet show was a huge success.
Simkin says he is working on anothr show that will be "very exiting and possibly China's first musical on Broadway."
(The authors are Xinhua writers. Shanghai Daily condensed the story.)
The painting, which was created by the Northern Song (960-1127) Zhang Zeduan, offers glimpses of the institutions, economy, culture and customs in the Song capital - Bianjing (today's Kaifeng in Henan Province) - the most prosperous metropolis in the world at that time..
Deng, general manager of Guangdong Southern Cultural Development Co Ltd, plans to take his company's dance performance based on the painting to Canada next July. The troupe is currently touring China.
Toby Simkin, vice president and executive producer of the US Broadway-based Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment, says the market is promising and worth the big investment. A veteran Broadway producer, Simkin has produced, managed or marketed more than 150 productions over two decades, including Tony Award winning shows.
As China's cultural industry has reformed, state-run art troupes and performing companies, including Deng's, have gradually abandoned the "iron rice bowl" concept and now compete in the marketplace. They aim for the international arena and choreograph an increasing number of Chinese dramas, acrobatics, ballet and musicals to target an international audience and earn more profits overseas.
Domestic performing companies struck 25 deals with overseas agents at a week-long performing arts trade fair in Guangzhou last week. Contracts of more than 100 million yuan (US$14.7 million) were negotiated.
The Chinese original musical "Butterfly Lovers" will be introduced in Europe and the US; a traditional opera costume show will be taken to Australia the Cantonese opera "Red Boat," or "Hua Yue Ying," will open in Qatar; Chinese puppets will perform in Germany: the kung fu drama "The Soul of Shaolin" and acrobatic show "Journey to the West" will tour Europe.
Last year, Simkin took "Soul of Shaolin" to Broadway and the show was nominated for a Tony Award. He also took "A Dream of Red Mansions" by the Shanghai Ballet to New York's Lincoln Center last year. The ballet show was a huge success.
Simkin says he is working on anothr show that will be "very exiting and possibly China's first musical on Broadway."
(The authors are Xinhua writers. Shanghai Daily condensed the story.)
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