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Fringe Festival rolls into Shanghai’s Xintiandi
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JUNE 6 marks the start of the first-ever Xintiandi Fringe Festival, a two-week event that will draw a constellation of local and international performing artists. Altogether, the area’s cafes, museums, plazas, theaters, lanes and shikumen (stone-gated) houses will host nearly 200 individual shows and performances.
“The shikumen house is such a unique architecture style of the city, and it was heavily influenced by Western-style row houses, so it will be quite cool to see both Chinese and Western shows in and outside all these old houses,” says Felix Lam, an American designer who has already booked tickets to several of the festival’s shows.
The Shanghai event is modeled after Fringe Festivals established in Ediburgh, Avignon and Adelaide. So it will also feature several award-winning acts from these international festivals, many of which will be making their China debut at Xintiandi.
The festival line-up runs the gamut from Peiking Opera, dance shows and multimedia spectacles to circus acts, pantomime and interactive drama.
Many performances are free to watch, while others require booking tickets online in advance.
During the short dance show “Afternoon of a Foehn Version 1,” a man in black will cut and paste colorful plastic bags onto dancers who twists, swirls, collides and turns to the wind. The 25-minute play was commissioned by France’s Natural History Museum of Nantes for its 2008 science fair, and won the Physical/Visual Theater Award at 2013 Edinburgh Fringe.
As the plastic “dancers” perform their unique moves, they prompts viewers to ponder a rarely thought question: What is the life expectancy of plastic bags and what happens to them in the journey from crude oil polyethylene to being discarded?
Wang Peiyu, a noted Peking Opera performer, will stage her deconstruction of traditional Chinese opera in “Chinese Opera Strum March.”
In recent year, many theater artists and writers have been trying to bring traditional Chinese operas, especially Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera, to younger audiences. Some have started regular shows and lectures at universities, while others have updated classic plays to make them easier for the younger generation to understand.
In Peking Opera, the tradition of cross-dressing exists for both genders, and Wang is particularly known for her sophisticated portrayals of adult male characters.
She was once quoted as saying: “There lies a unique aesthetic value in women’s portrayals of male roles. A good performer can even outdo her male peers in terms of exquisite performance and appeal in general.”
In “Chinese Opera Strum March,” Wang is the designer, producer and actor in this unique and timeless show, in which she explains the various components of traditional opera.
Many other Fringe Festival shows will invite audience participation, such as the British show “OK! OK!”
Each performance of this show requires four audience members, who will become its protagonists. The four strangers, required to make reservation beforehand, will each be given the script and asked to read their respective parts.
The British opera “The Garden,” adapted from the award-winning play of the same name, also requires reservation in advance, as space is limited to only 18 people per show.
Many other shows will be performed in public areas for all to enjoy.
Spanish and Australian artists will perform the passionate, intimate, powerful and charming flamingo show “Tablao” at 6:30pm every night between June 13 and 19 at Xintiandi’s main plaza area.
During the same week, young Australian guitarist Tom Ward will play three shows a day at noon, 2pm and 4pm. He has traveled around the world performing his music, including some Chinese cities and also at the World Expo 2010 Shanghai.
Date: June 6-19
Address: Various venues at Xintiandi
Tickets: www.gewara.com/subject/u/dB1460975318062
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