In 2014, the Royal Danish Ballet and the College of Chinese Traditional Opera affiliated to Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) jointly launched the modern dance play “Dream – Tribute to Michael Jackson” which was staged at the World Children’s Theatre Festival in Denmark and Shanghai International Arts Festival winning great success and high recognition of audiences of both countries. This year, the College of Chinese Traditional Opera was invited again to visit Denmark for co-performance.
The 28-member performance group of the STA College of Chinese Traditional Opera arrived at City of Holstebro, Denmark where they would have co-performances together with the Royal Danish Ballet.
The theme of this year’s performances was “And the Winner is??” with the Oscar songs as the core of all creations which were given new annotation through physical expression to display the different understanding and different forms of expression of music by eastern and western countries.
The first performance was on 19 April. The 1200-seat theatre was a full house. The mayor of Holstebro attended the opening ceremony and gave a welcoming speech in which he expressed high recognition and high expectation of the cultural exchange between the two countries. The teachers and students of the STA College of Chinese Traditional Opera presented the originally created performance based on the music of two classic films, i.e. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Lion King”, which entertained the Danish audiences with the unique charm of Chinese traditional opera and made a splash in the theatre.
The students of the STA College of Chinese Traditional Opera and Danish students also co-performed the dance based on “James Bond” and “Marilyn Monroe”, which received the high praise of the audiences.
The co-performance on this occasion was one of the cultural exchange projects extended from the cooperation agreement signed between the governments of Shanghai and Holstebro, i.e. the second one of its kind after the co-performance of “Dream – Tribute to Michael Jackson” in 2014. Mr Kent, President of the Royal Danish Ballet, fully recognized the comprehensiveness of multi-discipline and multi-major teaching offered at the STA College of Chinese Traditional Opera and places a high expectation on the continuous and in-depth cooperation between the two institutions, especially, with a new vision for the cooperation in musical theatre, as well as the hope that the teachers and students of both institutions would have the opportunity to co-produce new performances in the future.
At the same time, Mr Kent expressed the keen desire for the Danish teachers and students to visit Shanghai once again in October this year to participate in the Shanghai International Arts Festival - Rising Artists’ Works (RAW) together with the students of the STA College of Chinese Traditional Opera and present the new co-performances to the audiences in Shanghai.
The exchange and cooperation carried out by the STA College of Chinese Traditional Opera and Royal Danish Ballet in such a way has helped the Chinese people and Danish people to have a deeper understanding of each other’s culture and arts.
