Festival pays tribute to original Chinese theater productions

The Tianqiao Performing Arts Center has just launched its Spring For Chinese Arts, an annual festival which pays tribute to original Chinese theater productions.

Shanghai-based Kunqu Opera singer Zhang Jun kicked off the festival - which runs till May - with his Kunqu Opera piece, Spring Moonlit Night, on March 17.

Inspired by Blossoms On A Spring Moonlit Night, a work by Zhang Ruoxu, a poet from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the Kunqu Opera production, which features Zhang Jun as the producer and lead performer is a love story transcending life and death.

This year, the festival, which is in its second edition, will feature 10 stage productions covering the theater, musicals, and contemporary dance.

Like Zhang Jun's Spring Moonlit Night, the productions aim to keep traditional art forms alive while introducing contemporary aesthetics in the performances.

Meanwhile, Peking Opera performer Wang Peiyu, renowned for her laosheng (old male) roles, will present her production, Luan Tan, on March 26, which will focus on musicians who play at Peking Opera performances.

The production, split into three parts - solo instrumental music, ensemble music and singing - will introduce the exponents of traditional Chinese instruments, such as the erhu, the sanxian (a three-stringed Chinese lute), the gong and the ruan (a plucked string instrument), to the audience.

Speaking about the show and what it aims to project, Wang, who is a singer with the Shanghai Jingju Theater Company, says: "In Peking Opera performances, the singers are the stars. And the musicians performing by the side of the stage are usually ignored. I want to showcase these musicians and their instruments, which are vital for Peking Opera."

Wang says she came up with the idea of the performance about a year ago and was able to bring it to life with the help of her classmates from the Shanghai Theater Academy - composer Lin Yuan and san xian player Zhou Yi. The production premiered in Shanghai in August 2016.

Separately, Taiwan's Contemporary Legend Theater will showcase its production, Kingdom of Desire - a Peking Opera adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth - which has toured the world extensively since it opened in 1986.

Contemporary Legend Theater, founded by Taiwan award-winning actor-director Wu Hsing-kuo, is known for its Peking Opera versions of Shakespeare's works, including The Tempest, King Lear and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

On the music front, Grammy Award-nominated musician Wu Man will bring the pipa - the 2,000-year-old four-stringed Chinese lute - to life with a contemporary twist, using jazz, rock and electronic music.

The Hangzhou-born San Diego-based musician will be joined by tanbur virtuoso Siro-jiddin Juraev from Tajikistan, Bishkek-based komuz player and composer Askat Jetigen Uulu and Italian percussionist Andrea Piccioni.

Speaking about how the festival is reviving traditional Chinese art forms, Yang Qianwu, the secretary-general of the Beijing Theater Association, says: "While the country's economic development and the influence of Western arts has led to Chinese artists losing interest in some traditional Chinese art forms, we are glad to see artists return to and revive the art forms using different approaches."

Among the other offerings at the festival are the award-winning Hong Kong musical, Field of Dreams, which tells the story of the first Chinese soccer team competing at the Olympics in 1936, and the contemporary dance piece White Lotus, Black Sand by Beijing Dance LDTX.