20 December 2019
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of the College of Dance of Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA). Over the past 20 years, the STA College of Dance has trained a large number of top-notch professional dance talents for Shanghai and even the country. Many top talents trained by the STA College of Dance have won gold awards in major dance competitions at home and abroad on numerous occasions. A group of top talents have become the chief dancers of dance troupes at home and abroad. The STA College of Dance has created more than 40 nationally renowned excellent dance works, including Red, Four Seasons, Dragons Fly and Phoenixes Dance and A Touch of Red.
Over the past 20 years, the faculty of the STA College of Dance has been growing and improving, and famous and backbone teachers have been emerging. The journal “Contemporary Dance Research”, sponsored by Dance Academy, has become an important academic research position in China. At the same time, the STA College of Dance also owns and operates the Shanghai Youth Dance Troupe as the base of dance teaching practice. The STA College of Dance has become one of the new forces and leaders representing the development level and reform and innovation of China’s higher education in contemporary dance.
On the evening of 18 December, the STA College of Dance held a special performance of top quality dances in the theatre of Shanghai International Dance Center for its 20th anniversary of celebration. Leaders and other guests of honor from Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Anhui Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Shanghai Dance Theatre, Shanghai Opera House, Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, Shanghai Dancers Association, International Dance Center Foundation and Minzu University of China College of Dance, main leaders of Party and administrative leaderships of STA, and experts and colleagues from the Shanghai’s dance industry attended the event. Before the performance, Xie Wei, Party Secretary of STA, and Chen Jianian, Dean of the STA College of Dance, delivered speeches successively.
This performance was not only for the 20th anniversary celebration of the STA College of Dance, but also for all the teachers and students of the STA College of Dance to look back at and remember the great journey of the motherland, and to pay tribute to the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The wonderful performance that night won the warm applause of the audience. Many of the audience expressed that they had been deeply moved by and immersed in the emotion and spirit conveyed by the dances.
The celebration of the 20th anniversary has come to an end, but the splendor continues. We look forward to the STA College creating more excellent works, producing more top talents, and continuing to inject new vitality into the dance higher education in Shanghai and even the whole country. We wish the STA College of Dance a even more brilliant future in the next 20 years.
