Edinburgh Art Festival in the UK: "Chinese Story" gains high popularity in the UK

if acrobatic performances are loved by western audiences because there is no language barrier, the success of modern dramas performed in Chinese can better reflect the advantages of cultural collision and communication between the East and the West.

3 weeks, more than 3000 performances, more than 50, 000 performers from more than 60 countries and regions, and millions of audiences. This is the performance data of the British Edinburgh Art Festival in August this year. In such a numerous list of performances, how can the more than 20 performances brought by Chinese art groups attract people's eyes and ears, and how to attract the audience to come into the theatre and listen to the "China Story" attentively?

posters of the Chinese original multimedia stage play "because of Love" can be seen everywhere on the streets of Edinburgh. Successfully using the local public relations company in Edinburgh to create momentum at the Arts Festival. Since its premiere on the 5th of this month, the stage theater launched by the China Foreign Culture Group Corporation has been full and has been interviewed by a number of British media.

it is far from enough to be good at promotion and publicity. Good-looking programs are the last word. The show is based on Shandong acrobatic Troupe and employs an American production team to recreate Chinese acrobatic art with the unique dance vocabulary of Western pop music and Broadway musicals. Superb acrobatic skills and interesting interpretation methods attract many viewers to watch together with the elderly and children. The one-hour program can win more than 600 applause from the audience. Some of the audience stayed after the performance to express their praise and gratitude to the actors alone.

the local magazine The list devoted two full pages to "because of Love" and rated it as the most anticipated circus acrobatic performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, praising "the actors' remarkable performance. They put superhuman jumping skills into sweet, warm and humorous performances."

if acrobatic performances are loved by western audiences because there is no language barrier, the success of modern dramas performed in Chinese can better reflect the advantages of cultural collision and communication between the East and the West.

on the afternoon of the 14th, more than 500 spectators in the Plessens Theatre, the veteran theatre of the Edinburgh Art Festival, applauded warmly to express their congratulations to the last performance of the Shanghai Modern Drama Arts Center drama" startled Dream "in this theater for two weeks. Seventy years ago, it was here that one of the eight art groups competing with the official International Arts Festival held performances, creating the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. As a result, the theater has become one of the core theatres of the annual Fringe Arts Festival, and is also seen as a guarantee for the quality of performance and the number of audiences. This year, the theatre took the initiative to extend an invitation to the Sino-British co-production "Dream".

"startled Dream" tells the story of the heroine falling into a strange dream because of love. It is jointly created by Shangwen and the British gecko troupe, with actors from the Chinese side and technology from the British side. Executive producer Tang Shi told reporters that the preparation of the play began two years ago. "We met this young and energetic group when we saw the performance of the gecko troupe at the Edinburgh Edge Art Festival a few years ago." Last year, we invited them to Shanghai to start cooperation.

Last year, it coincided with the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu. "startled Dream" skillfully combines the works of these two great playwrights, such as making the characters in "Midsummer Night's Dream" appear in the heroine's dream and interpreting the story of "Peony Pavilion" in the way of shadow play.

although the actors perform in Chinese, the full body performance makes the play easy to understand by foreign audiences. "I can understand this story from China," said Amalia Bennett, an audience from Greece. "I don't understand Chinese, but I fully understand the expressions, movements and emotions of the people in the play. Language is not a barrier, and the play tells a story about love, jealousy and liberation in a narrative familiar to Westerners. "

Chinese stories and international expressions, which made the audience flooded and praised during the performance in Edinburgh. Professional drama review media such as "British Theatre Guide" and "Broadway Treasure" scored five stars one after another, and even the critical Times also gave four stars high praise.

"because of Love", "startled Dream", together with "Luocha Guo", "idiot", "Xinsheng in the new city of Shenzhen", "husband trick" and "Shadow", it is seven excellent plays promoted by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and displayed in the "focus on China" section of this year's Edinburgh Art Festival. This is China's first attempt to promote Chinese culture at the Edinburgh Art Festival in the form of overall operation and integration of resources.

Xiang Xiaowei, Minister Cultural Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in the UK, said that the program selection is based on the wishes of folk art institutions, and the purpose is to focus on the performance of a number of high-level art projects at internationally renowned art festivals, fully reflecting the overall strength of Chinese theatrical stage art.

how to highlight the highlights among the thousands of flowers? Xiang Xiaowei believes that to promote the "going out" of Chinese culture and art, we should focus on three bright spots: domestic traditional art, contemporary innovative art, and new works. The "focus on China" section helps to "focus on expression, concentrate on doing great things", bring these cultural and artistic highlights to the international stage, and achieve a breakthrough from quantity to quality.

starting from this year, the "focus on China" campaign will be launched every year during the Edinburgh Art Festival to solicit and select high-level programs to enhance the influence and attention of Chinese programs in the festival, and gradually create new business cards of Chinese culture on this international stage.

the strength of art groups, coupled with government-supported promotion platforms, expect "China Story" to become more popular in Edinburgh, the British art capital.

Edit: mary