20 May 2019
As part of the 4th “Think Youth” Shanghai University Students Culture and Creative Works Display jointly sponsored by the Shanghai Education and Health Work Party Committee and the Shanghai Education Commission, the Excellent Drama and Dance Works Showcase and Award Ceremony was held in the Duanjun Theatre of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) on the afternoon of 19 May. Mao Lijuan, Deputy Director-General of the Shanghai Education Commission, Xie Wei, Party Secretary of STA, Liu Qing, Vice President of STA, Liu Ying, Vice President of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Zhao Lixia, Deputy Director of the Higher Education Department of the Shanghai Education Commission, and other leaders and guests attended the showcase event and presented awards to the winners. Representatives of teachers and students from more than 10 colleges and universities in Shanghai participated in the ceremony.
The purposes of the “Think Youth” event are to implement the important deployment of mass entrepreneurship and innovation and deepening innovation and entrepreneurship education reform in institutions of higher education, to support Shanghai’s endeavors to build an internationally influential cultural and creative industry center as well asa design capital, fashion capital and brand capital, to vigorously create an ecological environment for cultural innovation and creative industry development in the Yangtze River Delta region, to build a bridge between campus creative innovation and cultural industry parks, to open up the transformation chain of student works–product incubation-commodities, to promote the seamless connection between the cultural and creative education achievements of higher education institutions and the innovative and creative industries in the market, and to create a large number of outstanding innovative and entrepreneurial talents.
Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) is an art university which mainly trains professional theatre artists. STA attaches great importance to the innovation and entrepreneurship activities of university students and upholds the educational philosophy that everything is based on the development of students, with which it has built various kinds of platforms in accordance with the principle of interest-driven, independent practice and process-oriented to include the functions of financial support, guidance, exchange and display, so as to create a good campus atmosphere for innovation. This year is the fourth consecutive year that STA has hosted the Think Youth Shanghai University Students Cultural and Creative Works (Drama and Dance Works) Collection and Showcase.
In order to do a good job in organizing and coordinating this event, the STA leaders have attached great importance to it. Under the overall coordination of the Academic Affairs Division and the Publicity Department and with enthusiastically participation of other colleges and universities in Shanghai, this year’s event received 113 works from 19 colleges and universities, which showed not only a significant increase in the number of works, but also a noticeable improvement in terms of the creativity and connotation of the works. After careful evaluation and selection, 11 first prizes, 21 second prizes and 35 third prizes were awarded for the drama and dance category, and some of the award-winning works were further selected for performance on stage.
The performance was divided into four chapters, namely, inheritance, youth, innovation and hope, including five drama works and three dance works. They were: drama Do You Want to Be Lu Xun? by the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, musical play The User’s Manual about Me” by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, drama “Boxes” by the Shanghai University of Electric Power, puppet play “Growing Pains” by the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and drama “Wings of Hope on the Sea” by the Shanghai Ocean University, as well as specially invited group dance “Continue Writing” and double dance “Nightingale and Rose” by the Shanghai University of Sport, and group dance “Heroic Souls” by the Shanghai Theatre Academy. All these works were strictly selected, and the performance brought a wonderful cultural and artistic experience to the audience.
