Recently, the College of Creative Studies held online seminars on the training schemes for the Art Management - Stage Technology and Production 2022 (Undergraduate) and the Art Management - Opera Production, Theatre Operation and Stage Management 2022 (MFA) respectively.
These two classes are to be jointly trained by the Shanghai Theatre Academy and the Shanghai Grand Theater Art Center, and will formally commence in September this year.
The seminars were presided over by Huang Changyong, president of the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Chen Ping, founding president of the National Centre for the Performing Arts and chairman of the Beijing Federation of Literary and Art circles, Xu Zhong, president of the Shanghai Opera House, Zhang Songhua, party secretary and president of the Shanghai Grand Theater Art Center, Liu Qing, vice president of the Shanghai Theater Academy, Zhang Xiaoding, general manager of the Shanghai Grand Theater, Yu Jiongming, human resources director of the Shanghai Grand Theater Art Center, and the heads and teacher representatives of the Academic Affairs Office, Graduate School and College of Creative Studies of the Shanghai Theater Academy attended the seminars. The participants had warm discussions on such topics as the training objectives, curriculums and allocation of teachers, aiming to further consolidate the curriculum system, optimize the training schemes through in-depth discussions so as to ensure the high-quality implementation of teaching work.
The stage technology production class will be based on the industry-education integration, the university-enterprise cooperation and the culture-education combination, and will feature distinctive educational characteristics. The curriculum will cover specialized theoretical knowledge and all elements of performance-related technologies such as sound, light and electricity, pay more attention to cutting-edge science and technology, and creatively turn practical courses into "technological theatres", take students into theatres and studios, implement the "college + theater" dual teaching system, and guide students to participate in the whole process of performance production. The Shanghai Grand Theater Art Center will also further integrate resources, fully support and cooperate with the teaching work, and strive for good results in running this class.
The specialized courses of the opera production, theatre operation and stage management class will invite experts from well-known art institutions at home and abroad, such as the Shanghai Grand Theatre, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the Royal Opera House of UK, theScala Opera House of Italy, the Bastille Opera in Paris, the Bavarian State Opera, to participate in the teaching, thus forming an "international", "professional" and "crossing" teaching team for the customized cultivation of high level artistic talents in the areas of opera production, stage management and theatre operation for the Shanghai Grand Opera House, which will open in 2025. Before graduation, students must participate in two to three opera projects, fully participate in the production of one opera, and take the preparatory work for the opening of the Shanghai Grand Opera House as the graduation internship project. Chen Ping, founding president of the National Centre for the Performing Arts and chairman of the Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles, said that as the every first opera production, theatre operation and stage management class among all higher art education institutions in China, the class has neither previous examples to learn from, nor can it simply copy the educational experience of foreign countries, and as such needs to explore its own training mode. With the completion of Shanghai Grand Opera House, opera production has a high gold content and is of great strategic significance.
As the host department of these two classes, the College of Creative Studies will be based on market demand, committed to long-term cooperation, actively explore new ways of university- enterprise cooperation and plan to establish a quality supervision committee, and will the teaching arrangements, the assessment of students' practical ability and the integration with performance projects under the situation of normalized COVID prevention and control as the "questions that must be answered" for deepening long-term cooperation with the Shanghai Grand Theater Art Center, so as to ensure the quality of teaching.
President Huang Changyong asked that we should make full use of various platforms of the university, such as the Laboratory of Shanghai Science and Technology Commission, the Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Think Tank of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, to provide support for teaching. We should attach great importance to curriculum construction, make effective allocation of internal and external teachers, and organize teachers to actively prepare lessons. We should pay attention to the accumulation of archives and the display of periodical achievements in the process of running these two classes, and make them the cases of teaching reform. He hoped that all people involved can make concerted efforts to make these two classes fruitful and establish the brands, and make students, employers and society satisfied.
