During the 2014 Shanghai International Arts Festival, the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) and Quanzhou Gaojia Opera Company staged a joint performance of the western classic fairy story, Beauty and the Beast. This cross-board collaboration with the unique highlight featuring the combination of Chinese traditional opera and puppet play attracted the great attention of domestic and international art buyers. The ingenious mixture of puppet-style acting of Chinese traditional opera with modern puppet, in particular, generated the strong interest of a number of European art institutions.
At the invitation of University of London’s Goldsmiths College and Centre of Asia and Africa Studies and Exeter University, Mr Yu Yang, teacher of STA’s puppet major, and the artists from the Quanzhou Gaojia Opera Company visited the Britain and gave three performances of Beauty and the Beast from 26 to 30 April. As the designer of the puppets, Mr Yu Yang also held two workshops during the visit. It is worth noting that these workshops marked the first time that STA’s brand project “Chinese and International Marionette Export Workshop Series” was held overseas. The workshops were highly praised by the teachers and students of the British art schools.
This event was a periodical achievement of STA’s puppet major in international exchange. It reflected the sound international reputation and strong teaching capacity of STA’s puppet major and opened up a promising future for the cooperation between STA’s puppet major and its British counterparts.
