25 April 2018
On 8 April, 15 Year 3 undergraduate students, 2 postgraduate students and 1 exchange student from the Art Management Department of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) traveled to Beijing for one week of non-local field trips on the topic of theatre management, led by Professor Huang Yunjin, Dean of the Art Management Department and Huang Mohan, teacher of the Art Management Department.
During that period, they spent at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) studying and exploring the management model of NCPA. The various departments of NCPA attached great importance to this study visit by the teachers and students of STA. Chen Ping, President of NCPA, gave the keynote presentation personally, and the directors of the production department, performance department, stage technology department, marketing department, art popularization and education department, and brand promotion center all made careful preparation and held in-depth exchange with the teachers and students of STA on a wide range of topics including the development strategies of the performing arts centre, production model that develops local team through international cooperation, standards and performance evaluation for performance introduction, targeted membership marketing in the internet plus setting, brand promotion strategies, and Beijing-Shanghai comparison in art popularization and education. Through the comparison with the knowledge acquired in the classroom, international cases and practical experience gained from the various professional theatres in Shanghai, the students were able to sum up a series of operation and management features unique to the theatres in Beijing, especially NCPA.
In addition, the students also contacted the relevant persons in charge at the Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center, the Penghao Theatre, the Beijing Rehearsal Center and the Beijing Municipal Cultural Bureau, and conducted independent research visits to these three theatres (rehearsal site) with representative significance. In the meantime, at the request of the officials of the Beijing Municipal Cultural Bureau, the students also introduced the current situation of rehearsal sites in Shanghai on the basis of their research and practical experience in Shanghai.
Outside the study and research program, the students also had exchange and interaction with the teachers and students of the Art Theory Department of the School of Arts of the Peking University as well as the teachers and students of the art management major of the College of Humanities of the Beijing Dance Academy.
Based on the theoretical teaching of the theater management and the practical experience in the major theatres in Shanghai (i.e. Shanghai Culture Square, Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, Theatre Above etc) in the first semester of their Year 3 study, this visit by the art management students aimed to help the students understand the theatre operation and management approaches and models in Beijing which are necessarily the same as the theatre operation and management in Shanghai. Through the preview and research at the beginning, the study and exploration at the mid-term and the combing and summing up at the late stage, the students were able to obtain certain learning experience and produce some research reports.
