HUANG Weiruo
HUANG Weiruo is the playwright of NCPA opera commission The Ballad of Canal.
He is a playwright, drama theorist, professor and doctoral supervisor at the Central Academy of Drama. He was admitted to the Department of Dramatic Literature, Central Academy of Drama in 1982, and studied under Mr. ZHU Zhaonian for the Master’s degree in the History of Chinese Traditional Opera. From 1990 to 1993, he was a visiting researcher at the University of Bayreuth Centre for World Cultural Studies and the Department of Drama, University of Mainz in Germany. His main works include operas like The Field, The Sea, The King of Chu State, Nine Songs, My Heart Flies The Ballad of Canal, DIAO Chan and High Mountains and Running Rivers; dramas such as MEI Jianchi, After Sifan, Governance of the Emperor of Qin, Scholar and Executioner, State of Rākşasa, Three Chapters of the Year of Xinhai, Tuoba Xianbei, Borte, Legend of Huizhou Merchants, FAN Changjiang and CHEN Jiageng; musical dramas like Beauty of Suzhou and The Three Smiles; and traditional operas like King of Wuyue, Three Friends of Winter, XIN Fengxia and XIN Zhui.
His works has won the Wenhua Award, awards of “Five-One Project”, Wenhua Award for Excellent Plays, Award for Excellent Play of the PLA Art Performance and Golden Lion Award for Plays. He is also the winner of the Wenhua Screenplay Award (three times), Award for Excellent Plays of the “National Excellent Stage Art Works Project” (twice), National Excellent Script Award, Excellent Playwright Award of the PLA Art Performance, CAO Yu Drama Award, TIAN Han Drama and Literature Award, Flying Goddess Award, Award of Chinese Opera Festival for Excellent Playwrights and Golden Lion Award for Playwrights. In 2007, he was given the honorary title of “Excellent Drama Artist” by the Ministry of Culture. He enjoys the special government allowance of the State Council.
CAO Qijing
CAO Qijing is the director of NCPA opera commission Xishi.
He is a famous drama director, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the Directing Department of the Central Academy of Drama. He was ever a visiting scholar at Yale University and Columbia University in the US. During his 50-year career as a director and professor, he has directed over 80 works of modern drama, opera, Peking Opera, Kunqu Opera and various local traditional operas.
His important works created in recent years include modern dramas like Sister-in-Law, Red Dust, Father, Call Me Elder Brother and Mother; the operas such as Snow-covered Plateau, High Mountains and Running Rivers, Xishi, Farewell to My Concubine, DU Shiniang, The Sea, QU Yuan and The Field, Peking Opera works like The Anecdotes of Jian’an, Xishi Returning to Yue, Turandot and The Only One in All Ages; Kunqu Opera works such as The Peony Pavilion, Memories of Yingmei Nunnery, The Dream of Red Mansions, The Palace of Eternal Life, Cross the East Sea and The Story of Puppets; and the Huangmei Opera YAN Fengying, Ningbo Opera The Pawned Wife, Shanghai Opera Thunderstorm, Yue Opera The Story of Fishermen and Woodcutters and Hebei Bangzi Opera The Sixth Panchen.
His works won the Wenhua Award for eight times and a number of awards like Wenhua Award for New Plays, Chinese Peking Opera Festival Award for Excellent Plays, Chinese Opera Festival Award for Excellent Plays, Chinese Drama Festival Award for Excellent Plays and Award of Chinese Opera Society. He also repeatedly won the Wenhua Award for Directors, awards for excellent directors at Chinese Peking Opera Festival, Chinese Opera Festival and Chinese Drama Festival, and the Award of the Central Academy of Drama for Directors.
GAO Guangjian
GAO Guangjian is stage design director of NCPA, National Grade-A Choreography Designer, Outstanding Expert of Ministry of Culture, Vice President of China Stage Art Association and Visiting Professor of Shanxi Vocational Art College. His works are often awarded with Wenhua Award from Ministry of Culture, Stage Art Design Award and CSAA Award of China Stage Art Association. Many of his works have been listed among Top Ten Repertoires of National Stage Art Masterpiece Project.
His major works include opera Turandot, The Taming of the Shrew, Rigoletto, The Wilderness, La Traviata, Du Shiniang, Die Zauberflote and A Village Teacher; dance drama Moon over A Fountain, Dream of Great Dunhuang, Love and Hate of Yuanmingyuan Garden, Tibetan Antelope, Blue Sea and the Silk Road and Marco Polo; large-scale Shanxi talking and singing drama Liberation; Peking Opera Princess Turandot and Red Cliff, etc.
HU Yaohui
HU Yaohui served as the lighting designer of NCPA opera commissions including The Long March, The Ballad of Canal and Sunrise and drama commission The Lei Family, the Royal Architects.
He is the professor and masters’ instructor of Stage Art Department in the Central Academy of Drama Academy, deputy director of Stage Lighting Professional Committee of the Chinese Artists Society, member of China Entertainment Technology Association. His design style is emotionally delicate, restraining and elegant.
He has won Annual Drama Golden Lion Stage Art Award three times from 2004 to 2007, Wenhua Stage Lighting Design Award for six times and the Repertoire Award of National Stage Art Excellent Project for many times. His representative works include dramas such as Thunderstorm, Wilderness and Qin’s Emperor Zheng, operas such as Turandot, The Ballad of Canal and Sunrise, traditional Chinese operas such as Champion Singer and GUAN Hanqing, musicals such as Princess Wenchengand Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, child plays Red Scarf and The Child Wanting to Fly, Meihu opera Late Blooms of Roses, Guangxi opera The Learned Man Returns, Peking opera Tibetan Antelope, Hunan operas such as LI Zhen Returns, the large-scale live-action performances ZHUGE Liang from the Thatched Cottage and World · Love Mountain, TV sitcom I Love My Family and other hundreds of works. He wrote multiple academic papers such as Visual Form and Reconstruction of Stage Art, Visual Illusions of Stage Art and Lighting and modeling of Opera Stage Lighting.
MO Xiaomin
Born in Sichuan Province in 1964, MO Xiaomin began studying Sichuan Opera at the age of thirteen. For ten years, he worked as both an actor and set designer before enrolling in the prestigious Shanghai Drama Academy in 1987. After having studied operatic stage design under the tutelage of great masters like WANG Fushi, MO furthered his education by attending university classes in ancient Chinese culture, specifically: architecture, sculpture, calligraphy and the cultures and religions of China’s ethnic minorities. Joining the Shanghai Opera House, he soon found himself an artist in productions including many different forms of regional opera and four television films. To date, Mr. MO has designed costumes for over 50 major film, television, and stage productions. Having won many awards including those presented by China’s Ministry of Culture, Mr. MO is recognized as one of China’s most distinguished costume designers. Included in his credits are period costume designs for fifteen television series, four feature films, six operas, and thirteen dance dramas. He was nominated for the Gold Satellite Award for Best Costume Design for the award winning film The Emperor and the Assassin. Mr. MO received a Dora Awards nomination for Best Costume Design for the show Heartbeat.
QI Na
QI Na graduated from the Department of Stage Design, Central Academy of Drama. She is a member of China Institute of Stage Design and China Theatre Association. Her works have repeatedly won the Wenhua Award, the “Five-One” Project Award, National Project to the Distillation of the Stage Art Awards and Golden Lion Award for Excellent Dramas, as well as the Speacial Award of the Daegu International Musical Festival of South Korea.
Her main make-up design works include the large-scale epic drama Princess Wencheng, original Chinese musical drama Butterfly, The Broken Bridge, Mama, Love Me Once Again, Shangri-La, Jinsha and The Joker’s Game; the Chinese version of American Broadway’s classical musical drama Into the Woods; the dance dramas like Wind Song, Memories on the Grassland and Lake of the Crying Cranes; traditional operas such as South of the Ocean, The Taihang Wet Nurse and XIN Qiji; the modern dramas like Malan Flowers Bloom and Red Children; and the acrobatic show Hello, Effendi, the large-scale performance Charming Beijing at Shanghai World Expo and Xinjiang fantastic show Myth of the Silk Road.
FENG Jiangzhou
FENG Jiangzhou graduated from China Academy of Art. He is a famous new media artist, multimedia drama director and specially invited teacher of China Central Academy of Fine Arts and China Academy of Art. His works mainly involve music, image, installation, stage, etc. He has carried out broad cooperation with scientists, designers, film directors, performance artists, drama performers and dancers.
Since 2007, his original multimedia plays Spring Wind, Floating City, Series of False Appearances, Imperial Harem, Micro Linking, The Magic City, The Nightingale, The Woman Walking Backwards and Heat Up have been acclaimed as pioneering contemporary digital art works. Upon invitation, he took part in the Danish Metropolis Festival 2015, Wuzhen Theatre Festival 2015, French Festival d'Avignon 2013, Chinese Public Art Exhibition in Kassel 2012, Berlin International Design Festival 2012, Design Exhibition 2011 in Milan of Italy, French Festival d'Avignon 2010 and other important international exhibitions.
ZHANG Lin
ZHANG Lin once served as the multimedia designer for NCPA opera commission You and Me, the large-scale landscape opera Turandot directed by ZHANG Yimou in 2012, Impression Chinese Music directed by WANG Chaoge in 2013 and the large-scale stage show Tai Chi Diagram.
She studied at the Fine Arts School Affiliated to China Central Academy of Fine Arts from 1999 to 2003 and majored in digital media at China Central Academy of Fine Arts in the following four years. Her graduation work won the Best Creativity Award of the Academy. Granted a scholarship in 2007, she further studied the new media digital arts theory at the Graduate School of Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Canada. From 2008 to 2010, she studied the latest new media technology and art practice at Rhode Island School of Design in America for the Master’s degree in digital media, and at the same time, studied the interdisciplinary courses at Brown University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to probe into the application of new media art and technology in the new digital field and explore the possibilities of the application of computer programming, artificial intelligence, interactive sensors and other technological means in the new media digital art.
CAI Dongzhen
CAI Dongzhen studied under professors DU Mingxin and HAO Weiya at the Composition Department of the Central Conservatory of Music and graduated with a Master’s degree. Currently, he is a composer-in-residence at the Play Production Department of NCPA.
He has created a large number of dance dramas, musicals, films, songs and dance music pieces, and served as a composer for many important art activities including the China Art Festival, Asia Arts Festival and Nanning International Folk Songs Festival.
His main works include the comprehensive stage play Yan'an Nursery, the song and dance drama from Shaoshan of Hunan There Is a MAO Zedong in China, and the dance drama Golden Peacock – Nandie Dina, the orchestra works like Awakening from Hibernation and Dulcimer and String Quartet, the dance music pieces such as Blossom, Yearning, Ancient Art of War, Water Shooting Star, Love Hunting, Dance of the Spirits, The Envy of Shanxi and Butterflies in Love with Flowers, and the songs like Farewell, Deer Looking Back, Dandelion and Populus Euphratica Tune.