7 August 2018
At the invitation of the organizing committee of the International Nisville Jazz Festival in Serbia, the delegation of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) comprising the crew of the play “White Snake” participated in the festival from 3 to 10 August 2018. This visit was one of the activities under the Belt and Road Initiative of China and was also part of the “Walking Classroom” program of the Shanghai Theatre Academy.
The International Nisville Jazz Festival is a large public cultural event and an influential art festival ranking among the Top 10 in Europe after the Avignon Theatre Festival in France and the Edinburgh Art Festival of the UK. The Nisville festival is recognized by the Serbian Ministry of Culture and is also the winner of the award “The best from Serbia” as an excellent cultural project. Each year, the Nisville festival invites the most popular forms of performance and best shows from all over the world to perform at the festival.
The creative team of “White Snake” had its director, Associate Professor Xiao Ying of STA’s Acting Department, as the core of the creative production of the play, and worked in collaboration with the teachers and students of the stage design major and costume and make-up major of STA and the teachers and students of the acoustics engineering major of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The performers were all students of BA Acting 2016. The play is a multi-dimensional, inclusive and comprehensive work of art focusing on body movement. In the rhythm of classical and modern music, it highlighted the organic combination of such elements as poetic body movement, concise monologue, traditional performance and modern dance, and presented the contemporary expression of traditional drama. In the evening of the performance, the audience seats were fully occupied, and even the aisles and corridors were filled with audiences from all over the world. During the curtain call, the audiences applauded warmly and were reluctant to leave. Senior officials of the Chinese Embassy in Serbia attended the performance. It was reported that the National TV Station of Serbia and a number of media from the UK, France and some other countries carried a series of reports on the event.
