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A kaleidoscope of art
17/10/2005 11:15

Shanghai Daily news

Lots of world-class performers and performances are planned for the Shanghai International Arts Festival which opens in the city tomorrow night, but some critics have criticized  organizers for not giving the festival an identifiable theme, writes Michelle Qiao.

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Peking Opera play ¡°The Prince¡¯s Revenge¡±(left) and a performance by Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Myung-Whun Chung, are among the highlights at this year¡¯s Shanghai International Arts Festival.

Once again, the upcoming Seventh Shanghai International Arts Festival has a kaleidoscope of arts-themed events and shows on offer for the city's culturally minded residents and visitors.
The month-long festival begins tomorrow night and features 46 performances by Chinese and overseas artists, dozens of exhibitions, seminars, musical competitions and an art fair.
Australian choreographer Graeme Murphy's dance drama "Mulan," a collaboration between the Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble and the Sydney Dance Company, will kick off the festival at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center in Pudong.
Also tomorrow night, Chinese baritone Liao Changyong will sing the key role of Figaro in the Rome Opera's production of Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" at the Shanghai Grand Theater. The festival will end on November 18 with an acrobatic version of the classic ballet "Swan Lake" at the Shanghai Grand Theater.

Other highlights are concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Simon Rattle, a cello concert by Yo-Yo Ma as soloist, a dramatic dance version of "A Dream of Red Mansions" by The Cloud Gate Dance Theater from Taiwan and a concert presented by Sir Roger Norrington and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Although the program list has been slimmed down from last year's 60 performances, the arts festival brochure is as thick as ever.
Inside the striking cover featuring a ballet dancer in a rainbow of colorful musical notes are accounts of an Egyptian cultural week, a Yunnan culture week and details about every cultural event from the Berlin Philharmonic concerts to an outdoor concert in the Yuyuan Garden. However, after reading through the brochure, local music critic Wang Shu says he feels a bit lost.
"It seems that the festival has no theme, spirit or tradition to pass down, just the stringing of lots of performances together," says Wang.
He notes that many famous arts festivals in the world have impressive themes, such as the Edinburgh Arts Festival known for drama and the Donaueschinger Festival noted for contemporary music.
Lack of innovation and strategic promotion have been long-term drawbacks that have bugged the local arts festival.
Veteran Chinese conductor Yu Long, who is also artistic director of the Beijing International Music Festival (usually staged at the same time with the Shanghai event) said that the influence of an arts festival depends on the quality of its program, not its scale or the number of productions.
He said a big number of performances will distract attention, weaken impressions and blur any theme. Yu has made the Beijing festival recognized around the world.
The recently concluded Second Shanghai Piano Festival at the Conservatory of Music was a hit partly because it had an impressive theme: the piano works of Franz Liszt.
"An arts festival should have a coherent spirit but it can also have variations inside this form," says Zhou Keng, vice director of the local conservatory's Piano Department which organized the Second Shanghai Piano Festival. "I plan to make 'Mozart' the theme for the Third Piano Festival next October."
Wang adds that the festival should have a Shanghai character as its theme.
"Shanghai has its own artistic character which is to mix every style of art and culture from elsewhere," Wang says. "Shanghai hasn't much cultural and historical roots (compared with other cities in the country and around the world) but it has the gift of being able to absorb and digest everything that come in from outside. For example, Sichuan food - Shanghainese have now created a medium-hot Shanghai-style version of Sichuan food."
As the country's only state-level arts festival, the festival is supposed to be a "platform for artists from home and abroad to communicate." But still it has neither a theme nor an artistic director.
The key to the success of any arts festival, apart from factors like powerful sponsorship and the audience's level of artistic appreciation, is to find a capable and qualified artistic director.
"An artistic director should have a musical background and high administrative skills," says Zhou, who worked in the United States for 15 years. "Arts festivals involve the art of matching different styles of programs and artists together. The organizers should have studied local market, understood the tastes of the audience and matched the musicians and different instruments.
"It's not an easy job to hold a large-scale festival. And the festival style is too old-fashioned," he says. "I have studied successful arts festivals around the world and found they have had strong promotion and they have invited both celebrated and young artists with potential and they have reasonable budgets and more variety in the performances."
Other highlights of this year's festival include the ballet "Raymonda" to be staged by the Bayerische Staatsballett, the Shakespeare comedy "The Taming of The Shrew" by the Teatr Dramatyczny of Warsaw, the Spanish mime theater production "Sit" and a concert by the Cincinnati Pops orchestra.
"We should also have an intensive arts education and popularization program for ordinary citizens," says critic Wang. "We should also invite foreign ensembles to cooperate with local conservatories and schools, to give local young musicians more opportunities and help young people know and love high-brow culture. That's what arts festivals are held for.
"Arts festivals should make you feel that we citizens live in an artistic space, like Paris," he adds. "We can cover the signature buildings at People's Square with gigantic oil paintings, or build a wall on the Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall on which artists can paint whatever inspires them. The whole city can be turned into a huge instrument."