Show the dream of arts to the world from here – STA Rising Artists Works (RAW) has become an attractive stage for international art circles
When the new semester has just started, the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) has received the registration from the art groups in Ireland and Italy for participation in the performances during the Rising Artists Works (RAW) event to be held in October.
RAW has been held for two consecutive years and has become an attractive stage for the international art circles. This open week which was originally intended only for the university campus has become not only a stage for the young artists to demonstrate themselves but also an important avenue for the whole society to have a close exposure to the arts. It has event attracted some institutions of arts to come and look for art products. According to STA Party Secretary Lou Wei, RAW enables the students to upgrade their skills through practice, allows the general public to go close to the arts, assists more young artists to get onto the international stage with ease and makes the culture and arts beneficial to more people. This is a proactive response that an art university makes to the era by breaking through the traditional cognitive barriers and making a precise self-positioning.
During last year’s RAW alone, STA carefully and thoughtfully designed a variety of demonstration activities on its campus, including 200 performances, 19 workshops and lectures, 20 visual arts exhibitions, 64 microfilms, 11 high quality course, which attracted the attendance of nearly 30,000 teachers, students and members of general public.
Campus open day breaks through the walls of art and cultural communication
The RAW event was originally regarded as a campus open day which was to make the entire campus a stage for the youngsters to show their talents. However, when it was open for registration, it attracted many domestic and international art groups to come.
Creating an open stage is the necessary way for arts to go towards popularization. During the RAW event, every classroom and every corner on the STA campus were thoughtfully designed into a “stage”, while the rehearsal halls, classrooms, lawns, balconies, corridors and even passers-by were cleverly utilized as elements of artistic performance. Arts stepped down from the professional stage high above, broke through the so called “forth wall” and attempted to be an integral part of life with the creation of a new stage where there is a scene everywhere and there is a role to play for everyone. More importantly, this stage was open to the whole society while open means freeing up and encouraging participation. The university opened its gate to the general public who could take part in and spread out the art activities of the RAW event in their own way should it be watching the activities, participating in the dialogues or even taking part in the performances. The RAW event was not only an art carnival that the residents would love to see, but also represented the forethought of an art university about its role in serving the society that is to remove the dividing line between arts and life to the best possible extent and make arts part of people’s common life thus upgrading the quality of the whole people in the exposure and influence of culture and arts.
Apart from cultivating more audiences, this open stage also bred a galaxy of rising stars of art. 18-year old Wu Chenghao is the author of chamber music “The Song of White-flag Dolphin”. Four years ago when he just started trying with music composition, it was beyond the stretch of his imagination that only four years later, he would be able to stand under the spot line on an international stage. The RAW event significantly lowered the access threshold for professional acting/performing. It assisted and pushed the young people to embrace tests and challenges on a higher international stage where their vitality would be motivated by the warm comments of the audiences and nurtured by those of renowned artists. A galaxy of renowned artists like Tan Dun, Tian Qinxin and Yang Liping were present at the RAW event and provided lots of concrete guidance to the young artists making the young artists’ performances not only artistic but also learning-oriented and helping them grow mature and go international from here.
Open classroom makes the new concept for cultivating innovative talents
Open classroom is the necessary requirement of cultivating innovative talents. The mission of a school is to educate people. But, what makes it different from traditional education is that a university needs to cultivate talents who have open mind and can lead the future. For an art university, how to cultivate students’ innovative thinking are how to afford the students more space for free choice and care for their immature but independent thinking power are some of the key questions to address.
During the RAW event, the entire campus was turned into an open classroom with performances, workshops and lectures, visual art exhibitions and microfilms etc and every student would be able to find his/her point of interest for learning in this classroom. Students attended lecturers, participated in performances and workshops and they also organized performances or worked as volunteers. The teaching practice in a variety of forms broke through the means of teaching driven by material gains. It did not set specific and direct teaching requirements for the students at the beginning; instead, by adopting broader vision and more vivid expression, it attracted the students to partake and encouraged them to undertake inquisitive learning to enrich experience, initiate thinking and harvest results through their personal practice. Li Guoqing, a postgraduate student in directing said that the RAW event brought forward lots of unique thoughts and ideas in the professional fields which were highly inspiring and the personal practice was even more helpful to understanding and perception. The RAW event enabled the learning to go out of classroom and go back to the original significance of learning. It encouraged creative thinking and allowed the students to achieve “learning by doing” in the fun and joy of practice.
The overseas guests coming to the Shanghai International Arts Festival last year were also greatly attracted by the RAW event. Many of them came especially to observe the activities of the RAW event and gave very high opinion. Mr Jonathan Mills, artistic director of the Edinburgh International Festival said, “In the last few days, I came especially and watched a few works. I found them great and in novel and unique forms. The activities of the RAW event are of very high quality. The collaboration between the arts festival and university has made the university campus full of artistic atmosphere and appeal.” The overseas guests coming to the forum and trade fair of the arts festival not only watched the performances of the RAW event, but also made the decision on the spot to invite “North Bank of Suzhou Creek” and a batch of other plays to go overseas for exchange performances.
Open education creates a new model of culture-education integration
To integrate culture with education is to capitalize on their respective strength, i.e. making culture an important function of education so that it can be carried forward and making education an important content of culture so that it gets the support. The RAW event has found a foothold for the “culture-education integration”. It has allowed the in-depth dialogues between the two heavy-weigh carriers of culture and education, i.e. China Shanghai International Arts Festival and Shanghai Theatre Academy, thereby breaking through the relative independence of culture system and education system that has existed for a long time. No doubt, the “open-door education” model has helped to boost the talent cultivation, faculty building and discipline development of the university.
Lou Wei expressed, “It is indeed the mission that an art university should carry on its shoulder to open the gate of the university and provide the domestic and international young artists with a stage to demonstrate their creativity and arts to the whole society and, in the meantime, provide our students with the opportunities to participate in the artistic practice and provide the whole society with a platform to appreciate and enjoy arts. STA President Han Sheng said that the RAW event is a very good model which reflects the integration of the university and its art education with the cultural activities of the city.
