The dance drama,“A Dream of Red Mansions,” will kick off
the Sixth Shanghai International Arts Festival tonight.

Shanghai Daily news

Spectacular French fireworks light up the sky as dancing soldiers tell the story of ``A Dream of Red Mansions'' -- tonight the annual sixth Shanghai International Arts Festival swirls into action with multi-cultural events at multi-venues.

``French Culture Week'' in Shanghai this year features a series of shows and exhibitions from France, and the festival will serve as a bridge for cross-cultural artistic exchanges. As ``The Year of France in China'' has started, the festival is brushed with a splendid mix of red passion, white purity and blue romance. The Group F Fireworks Company from France, which will light up the opening ceremonies of both the ``French Cultural Week'' and the festival, was the team behind the magnificent millennium celebration at the Eiffel Tower as well as major sports events, including the 1992 and 2004 Olympic Games in Barcelona and Athens respectively.

The show they prepared for Shanghai revolves around an ancient European legend of how human beings managed to rescue the sunlight stolen by evil spirits. Spectators will see some amazing pyrotechnics, including performers dancing with live fireworks.

``The festival is not only for the sake of communication between artists from home and abroad but also dedicated to the ordinary people of Shanghai and the country as a whole as we made clear when launching the first festival in 1999,'' says Chen Shenglai, president of the festival's organizing committee. ``That's why we insist that the artistic quality of the outdoor opening ceremony is as good as the indoor one.''

Despite the organizer's ambition, catering to people from all walks of life is almost ``mission impossible'' for arts and music festivals, and the Shanghai festival has yet to find an identity similar to that of other cities such as Salzburg (which has Mozart) and Edinburgh (the ``fringe'').

However, the organizers have come to grips with the task of choosing festival items from China's abundant cultural legacy. When deciding on the opening program, the choice came down to the dance drama, ``A Dream of Red Mansions'' or an opera production. The ``Dream'' won the day and will be performed by the Beijing Comrades-in-Arms Song and Dance Ensemble.

The dance was produced by the Shanghai City Dance Company which for the past years has had worldwide hits with two items that were originally staged at the arts festival. They were the dance extravaganzas ``Wild Zebra'' and ``Farewell My Concubine,'' which were sensations when taken overseas and each did great business at the box office. The latest creation still follows the market-tested concept of interpreting classics of Chinese culture through modern dance.

Also on the program this year are four productions, including the concert ``Harmony of Man and Nature'' by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, which has qualified to compete in the Second National Elite Stage Arts Project. Launched by the Ministry of Culture last year, the project aims to refine the country's stage productions and fund the ones that best represent a dynamic China.

``The success of `Wild Zebra' has confirmed our confidence in giving more exposure to original Chinese productions at the festival which is an ideal platform to introduce our latest fine arts to the world stage,'' Chen says.

While domestic artists are knocking on the door of the international market, some of their overseas counterparts who have appeared at previous festivals can't wait to return. This year Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and French conductor Christopher Eschenbach, who were in Shanghai last year, are back.

Organizers have also worked hard to make sure there are enough affordable seats on sale for the general public. On September 18, the festival's preferential ticket project was launched for the second year in a row. More than 30,000 tickets, about a quarter of the total, were sold in one day with discounts of up to 75 percent and the tickets were for all events on the festival program.

``I feel extremely happy at having the chance to watch a show at such an acceptable price,'' says one arts fan, an 89-year-old man surnamed Xu who has traveled for an hour from his home to the downtown Shanghai Art Center to buy a ticket for the ballet ``Romeo and Juliet'' staged by Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo of Monaco. More excited than Xu are Feng Lu, 51, and Shi Guiling, 55, who were hired as extras for the open-air opera ``Carmen,'' another festival highlight which will be presented by the Companions Opera from the Netherlands. The two amateur dancers have been rehearsing with the professional cast from 7pm to 10pm at the Shanghai Stadium every night for the past week.

``Both of us are members of the dancing troupe in our community. We danced at the `Daily Performance' (a program run by the festival for citizens to display their talent) last year and we want to step up to a higher level this year,'' a beaming Feng says.

Shi adds: ``It's a demanding task for us since we are amateurs but we really enjoy the experience. Both Bizet's opera and the Spanish bullfight were once something on television to us but now we are part of it.''

Floor Biemans, a production manager with the Companions Opera, says, ``in every country we travel to, we try our best to bring local people into the production -- from hiring professional staff to having ordinary people perform with us.

``Chinese people are comparatively shy and conservative and it's not easy for them to block their minds and act like a Westerner, but they are really smart and are improving beyond our expectations and we are most pleased to see they really enjoy it,'' he adds.

As the festival aims to connect art to the lives of ordinary citizens, some critics have suggested that it be promoted more strategically. Once again this year, a total of 61 program items have been roughly divided under the headings of music, dance, drama, traditional folk art and acrobatics which make the program look a bit messy.

``The festival does feature a number of good performances every year but unfortunately they are often buried due to ineffective promotion,'' says Zhang Hao, a marketing manager with a local performance agency.

Zhang cites the 2004 Hong Kong Arts Festival to explain his point. With ``Families'' as its theme, the last Hong Kong festival was innovative in putting on shows like ``Two Centuries of Legend,'' a Peking Opera about three generations of the glorious Tan Family.

``Adequate branding can help a festival become more coherent, and selecting and arranging the program is very important,'' Zhang says. ``It can blend arts and culture in a sophisticated way which, in turn, will enlighten audiences.''