22 October 2017
Reporter: Zhuge Yi, Jiefang Daily
Rising Artists’ Work (R.A.W!) and R.A.W! Land of the 19th China Shanghai International Arts Festival (CSIAF) opened yesterday. Over the next week, more than 30 commissioned and invited performances will be staged at the Shanghai Theatre Academy and several other venues of performing arts, including music, dance, drama, Chinese traditional opera, exhibitions and creative bazaars etc.
As a brand activity of CSIAF, R.A.W! has entered its sixth year. Of the nine commissioned works, "Memory of Taste – Big Hot Pot" was staged in the Malanhua Theater in advance, in which Guan Bo and Zha Wenhuan, the two “academic” actors, joined hands once again, telling about the “care and concern” from a simple and natural perspective and showing joys and sorrows of life through the pleasure, anger, sorrow and job of the small potatoes. Xin Yaqin, an actress of Shanghai Shaxing Opera Company, joined hands with Zhou Qian and created the small theatre experimental Shaoxing opera “Revived Predestination”, attempting to bring a different perception to the audience by using the immersive way of expression. The modern dance “Above Silence” by Zhen Jie of Beijing Contemporary Ballet took the audience to explore the absolutely clear state of mind through the combination of motion and stillness in dance movements.
Two works of crossover cooperation were also eye-catching. Song Yang of Central Conservatory of Music and his counterpart from Merlin Modern Orchestra jointly created the new musical theatre “The Hungry Artist”. Zhang Ling, a graduate student of theatrical literature, joined hands with Huang Saifeng, an oil painter, presented an innovative devised theatre “Game of Empty Box”. The cross-media concert “The Nameless Mirror” presented by a group called “Yinwu” brought a new auditory and visual experience with the most humane Chinese flute and electronic synthesis sound. Musical theatre “The Overlord”, Sichuan opera “Nie Xiaoqian and Ning Caichen” and Kunqu opera “The Snow of Changan” conveyed, from the young people’s perspective of artistic creation, the modern thinking of reshaping the traditional culture.
Specially invited by R.A.W!, “Mofei, the Alcoholics”, the work of the famous Polish director Krystian Lupa, was staged in advance on 14 October. The performance was as long as five hours, which talked about the loneliness of the individuals, the misunderstanding from the others around and the helplessness of the reality from the perspective of the “alcoholics”. R.A.W! Land brings together over 30 commissioned and invited works. Robert Wilson, famous American theatre director and actor, Chen Xinyi, famous director, Yan Qinggu, leading clown of Shanghai Peking Opera Company, Wang Yuanyuan, artistic director of Beijing Modern Ballet, as well as Zhu Jiejing and Wu Husheng, two leading dancers from Shanghai’s dance circle, will also share their thoughts with the audience through their works.
