The 13th China Children's Theatre Festival, co-sponsored by the China Children's Art Theatre, the Beijing Dongcheng District Party Committee, the District Government and the China Children's Theatre Research Association, will be held in Beijing from July 12 to August 18. At the press conference held on May 16, it was also announced that the "China Children's Art Theater Excellent Repertoire 2024 Summer Tour 100+" activity was officially launched.
Feng Li, President of Chinese Children's Art
Feng Li, President of the China Children's Art Theater and Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the 13th China Children's Theatre Festival, introduced the overall situation and highlights of the China Children's Theatre Festival. It is reported that this year's drama festival with the theme of "lighting up children's hearts and shaping the future", lasted for 38 days, and was divided into three sections: offline performances of excellent children's dramas, online exhibitions and performances of international excellent children's dramas, bringing together 33 plays from 25 children's drama groups in 8 countries, with 221 performances, and set up sub-venues for the festival in Jiaxing and Changzhou, benefiting the majority of children and young audiences through online and offline integration, performances and broadcasts.
As the first "national prefix" children's drama festival in China, the stage of the China Children's Theatre Festival has always adhered to the purpose of openness and sharing, and this year's drama festival has set up a section of "excellent children's drama offline performance", inviting masterpieces produced by well-known children's drama troupes and excellent production units at home and abroad to come to the China Children's Theater and holiday classic small theater for performances. The opening repertoire will be the song and dance drama "The Cat God in the Forbidden City" jointly produced by the China Children's Art Theater and the Palace Museum, and the closing ceremony of the main venue in Beijing will be the parent-child Peking Opera "Haunting Heavenly Palace" by the National Peking Opera Company.
As the cradle of diversified children's drama incubation, the "Bloom and Set Sail" Children's and Youth Theatre Arts Incubation Program has provided dozens of creative works for the children's theatre market. This year's Drama Festival has selected 4 works that stand out from the second season of the competition - "River Frog and Sea Fish" and "Where Have the Big Trees Gone?" "Red-headed Gull by the Sea" and "A Drop of Ink Escaped" were performed. At the same time, the children's dramas "Young Sima Guang" and "Lights" brought by the People's Government of Guangshan County, Henan Province were also invited to the authorized works of the "New Era Seed Project" of the China Children's Art Theater, so that the children could bloom on the stage not only as audiences, but also as actors.
In addition, the audience can also see the national intangible cultural heritage of the northern Sichuan puppet show - the large-scale mythological children's puppet show "Legend of Longmen" brought by the Sichuan Provincial Puppet Theater, the children's drama "Where is Chang'an" by Beijing Children's Art Theater Co., Ltd., the picture book drama "General Hum and General Ha" by the Children's Art Theater of the China Welfare Association, the children's drama "Cool Worm School 2" by Beijing Yiding Culture Communication Co., Ltd., and the large-scale classic mythological puppet show "True and False Monkey King" by China Puppet Art Theater Co., Ltd. Beijing Tianyi Tongge International Culture and Art Co., Ltd.'s magic pop-up book theater "Little Magician", Beijing Poly Performance Co., Ltd.'s children's drama "The Legend of the Zodiac Beast's Head", Ouyi Vision (Beijing) Culture and Art Development Co., Ltd.'s children's drama "Manushka and Michelino's Musical Magic Box" and many other excellent works.
It is worth mentioning that in order to promote exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign children's dramas, so that children can enjoy children's drama works from all over the world without leaving home, this year's Drama Festival will continue to launch the "International Excellent Children's Drama Online Exhibition" section, inviting 8 unique plays from 6 countries including Russia, Japan, Norway, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Spain to broadcast 8 public welfare performances on the "China Children's Art Theater" video account, Douyin account and other platforms from August 5th to 15th. With a variety of drama styles such as mime, puppet show, dance drama, fairy tale drama, etc., it shows the colorful style of children's drama in the world today.
During the Drama Festival, a series of drama "art" activities will be held, through the "Cat Star God" to take you to explore the stage, the first experience of "Beijing Rhyme" parent-child Peking Opera, and the "occasional" encounter with intangible cultural heritage to please the childlike heart, knock knock! ——"General Hum and General Ha" paper art workshop and other drama art popularization activities, so that children can experience the beauty of traditional culture while feeling art. In addition, the Drama Festival will continue to work with China Education Television to hold the "Little Drama Critics" review collection activity, focusing on children's drama works from the perspective of children. The principles of high quality, low ticket prices and public welfare will also be continued, and the "Warm Action" public welfare activities will continue to be carried out, and public welfare performance tickets will be distributed to different groups to create a theater festival with the participation of the whole people.
In 2023, the China Children's Art Theater will launch the "Excellent Repertoire Summer Tour 100+" activity for the first time, and this year, the "Excellent Repertoire 2024 Summer Tour 100+ Activities" will include "The Cat God in the Forbidden City", "Journey to the West" (Part 1, 2, 3), "Little Truck: Change", "Three Little Pigs", "The Frog Prince", "Little Tadpole Looking for Mother", "The Little Mermaid", "The Little Prince" and other 10 excellent children's dramas will go to Shanghai, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hubei, Henan, Fujian, There were 172 performances in Xinjiang, Anhui, Guangdong, Hainan and other places, so that children from all over the country could enjoy the nourishment of dramatic art.
At the press conference, the cultural and creative products of this year's theater festival - a limited edition hand-held photo card specially customized by China Children's Art and the first cultural and creative ice cream in the shape of the appearance of the Chinese Children's Theater and the images of Monkey King and Zhu Bajie in "Journey to the West" were also released at the same time. The leaders also jointly distributed the first batch of tickets for the festival's public welfare performances to the student representatives.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Guo Jia
Editor/Gong Lifang