In the evening of 20 April, the opening ceremony of the 8th Shanghai International Experimental Theatre Festival was held at the Duanjun Theatre of the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Leaders of the Shanghai Theatre Academy, Party Secretary Lou Wei, President Han Sheng and Vice President Mr Guo Yu, attended the opening ceremony together with Mr Tobias, Director-General of International Theatre Institute. Also present were Ms Aura Corbeanu, Vice President of Romania Theatre Association and the Swedish Consul General in Shanghai.
The opening ceremony was presided over by Vice President Gong Baorong of Shanghai Theatre Academy. He extended the warmest welcome to all guests of honour present at the opening ceremony. He introduced that the small theatre festival this year is a very special one as it is, for the first time, co-organized by the Shanghai Theatre Academy and International Theatre Institute and it has created a new record in the history of the festival in terms of the number of participating foreign performance groups including many first-time participants.
Mr Tobias, Director-General of International Theatre Institute, gave a speech welcoming the artists and students to the small theatre festival co-organized by the International Theatre Institute and Shanghai Theatre Academy. He expressed that the festival provides the performers with a platform in the form of experimental theatre allowing the performers from around the world to show on this platform. He invited everyone to watch and enjoy every performance and, in the meantime, see and discuss if the soul is touched.
Representatives of the performance groups from Sweden, Mongolia, Germany and Italy also gave speeches. They felt very happy to participate in the festival and looked forwarded to seeing the performances to be staged by the different groups. They recognized that the international experimental theatre festival can link the community, residents, artists and children together and play an extremely important role in cross-cultural exchange.
Party Secretary Lou Wei gave a speech on behalf of the Shanghai Theatre Academy. He expressed the most sincere gratitude to all participants. In his view, the festival has made significant and consistent progress year by year and this would not have been achieved without everyone’s participation. The nature of this theatre festival is experimental, exploratory and innovative and as such has been recognized increasingly by the troupes and universities of different countries and attracted increasingly wider participation. The Shanghai Theatre Academy has a full range of art disciplines and it is this comprehensiveness that has enable it to be full of critical thinking and highly inclusive and made it the most suitable place for exploration and innovation. At the same time, the International Theatre Institute’s relocation of its head office to Shanghai and its co-organization of this year’s experimental theatre festival together with the Shanghai Theatre Academy have provided us with a new platform to service the whole world and further upgrade the profile of the experimental theatre festival as an international event.
Finally, in the warm applause and cheers, Party Secretary Lou Wei announced the 8th International International Theatre Festival formally open and expressed his best wishes for all to enjoy the feast of theatre and for the further promotion of the exchange and development of the cultures of different countries.
