From November 1^st to 3^rd, the “Beijing Forum for Performing Arts & Taihu International Stage Art Forum 2024” will be held at the NCPA, Beijing Performing Arts Centre and NCPA Taihu Stage Art Centre. Ten sub-forums will take place during the Forum with guests from over 60 performing arts organisations in about 30 countries and regions across six continents to deliver speeches and join in on discussions. The General Meeting of Alliance Members will also be convened to build consensus on cooperation among global theatres, in order to jointly promote the booming development of world culture and art. On October 29^th, a press conference was held for the “Beijing Forum for Performing Arts & Taihu International Stage Art Forum 2024”. The organisers detailed the basic information and highlights.

Global Theatre Gurus gather to push the Performing Arts Industry Toward a Sustainable Future

The theatre, committed to spreading human civilisation and promoting its development, shoulders the mission of setting the trend for art inheritance and innovation. As a national performing arts centre, the NCPA stands devoted to creating, producing, popularising and disseminating artworks in a bid to drive the booming development of world art. Since 2019, the “Beijing Forum for Performing Arts” has been held for three times. The World Association for Performing Arts (WAPA) has been founded, as well, and it has 34 members from 22 countries. The members work together on exploring a new path for theatre management and writing a new chapter of cultural exchanges.

According to ZHU Jing, Vice Chairman of the WAPA and Vice President of the NCPA, the Beijing Forum for Performing Arts 2024, jointly hosted by the WAPA and NCPA, will be held under the theme, “Global Performing Arts—Toward a Sustainable Future”. Four hot industry issues will be touched upon, including “Young Artist Development”, “Sustainable Production”, “Outreach and Audience Education” and “Performing Arts Operation Management and Development”. On the morning of November 2^nd, the Opening Ceremony and Keynote Speech Session will be broadcast live on a number of network media including the NCPA Classical Channel, the WAPA Official Website, cctv.com, etc.

First, the international friendships among WAPA members continue to expand. Representatives of more than 60 performing arts organisations from nearly 30 countries and regions will attend the Forum on invitation. They’ll deliver speeches and hold discussions with each another. There will be “new faces”, including the Opéra National de Bordeaux, the Ópera Nacional de Chile and the Cape Town Opera. Secondly, the Forum is scaled up. For the first time, 10 sub-forums will take place at “three locations” of the NCPA, while the General Meeting of Alliance Members will be convened. The “three locations” of the NCPA will thus be brought to the fore - Accordingly, the NCPA is a comprehensive institution, the Beijing Performing Arts Centre is a modern one and the NCPA Taihu Stage Art Centre is a professional one. Third, hot industry issues will come under discussion. The representatives will focus on four major issues. With the NCPA beginning to run as “a performing arts centre with three locations” in 2024, a wider variety of performances will be given henceforth. Unlike the previous events, this year’s Forum will focus on musical production and development as one of the major genres of art characterising the Beijing Performing Arts Centre.

Alex Beard, Chief Executive of the Royal Ballet and Opera, will discuss how to develop a future audience by conducting a thorough data analysis to reveal changes in the audience structure and characteristics of emerging audiences. Yalilé Cardona, Representative in Europe, Ópera Latinoamérica Director of the Bogotá International Classical Music Festival, will take the “Amazon Opera Festival” as an example to share how 70,000 jobs can be created at an opera festival to pull local production and foster a younger audience. Karen Stone, Executive Director of Opera Europa, will first expound on how to set up a special scholarship programme and design high-quality courses, so as to ascertain what specific measures may be adopted by the WAPA to support young artists and promote the opera industry’s future development. Hyoung-Joon CHANG, President of the Seoul Arts Center, will present how to utilise AI to strengthen digital platforms, broaden the programme format and conduct eco-friendly management. Nicola Colabianchi, Superintendent and Artistic Director of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, will demonstrate how to encourage creation by organising competitions, judging over awards and commissioning works, and how to inject new vitality into the sustainable development of opera based on real life. Alex Gabriel, CEO of the Cape Town Opera, who will appear at the Beijing Forum for Performing Arts for the first time, will share measures on tackling a tough environment, or in the context of multiple challenges, to keep contributing to community-based aesthetic education and presenting high-quality performances.

Besides, new industry trends will be analysed in the manner of case sharing based on practical experiences in art production by an estimated 40 theatre representatives from at home and abroad, including Matías Tarnopolsky, Chairman and CEO of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center, Emmanuel Hondré, President of the Opéra National de Bordeaux, Brad Cohen, General Director of the New Zealand Opera, Marcelo Lopes, Executive Director of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra Foundation, and Ivan Caracalla, CEO of the Caracalla Dance Theatre.

ZHU Jing said that we sincerely expect that the upcoming Forum will offer a visible and feasible sustainable development path for the future of the performing arts and facilitate colourful civilisations to blossom on the world stage, in order that more and more people could feel the eternal charm of cross-border culture sharing.

With the progress of technical means and breakthroughs in creativity, the stage art plays a much more crucial role in the production and appreciation of artworks. As one of the three forums under the framework of the WAPA, the Taihu International Stage Art Forum has been held for five times since 2019. The Forum focuses on hot topics such as performance design, digital technology, space extension for stage design, etc. With rising influence, it has become a grand event in the Chinese and foreign set design circles.

Jointly hosted by the NCPA and China Institute of Stage Design, the “Taihu International Stage Art Forum 2024” will kick off alongside the Beijing Forum for Performing Arts on November 2^nd. Themed, “Aesthetics·Acoustics·Symbiosis”, this year’s Forum will be held with a special focus on how to blend acoustics and aesthetics with stage art, so as to explore the prospects for colourful stage art development.

According to GUAN Jianbo, Vice President of the NCPA, there are two huge advantages for this year’s Forum - First, it will be, creatively, held at the “three locations” of the NCPA together with the Beijing Forum for Performing Arts. These two will be combined into a high-quality, high-level and high-efficiency event that is rich in connotation, with impressive results soon to be yielded. Secondly, there is something special about theme design. And this year’s Forum is themed, “Aesthetics·Acoustics·Symbiosis”. Not just for a technical exploration on stage art, as was conducted before, the current theme is also about how to blend acoustics and aesthetics with stage art.

Set designers and professionals from different countries and regions will share their interpretations on new changes in the set design industry, based on their practical experiences and provide new ideas for more innovative development.

WANG Xiang, a musical producer and General Manager of the Four Seasons Happy Song (Beijing) Culture and Art Co., Ltd., will launch the development course of the Four Seasons Theatre to analyse the current development of Japanese musicals. LIU Kedong, a set designer at the NCPA and Vice President of the China Institute of Stage Design, will explain the philosophical and poetic connotations of contemporary set design. REN Dongsheng, Director of the Department of Stage Art, Beijing Dance Academy, will cite the musical On the Road as an example to discuss the efforts made in exploring stage vision for Chinese musical commissions. Japanese set designer Matsui Rumi will hold an in-depth discussion on how to keep a set design creative and unaffected in musical commissions. Italian set designer Domenico Franchi will speak about the imaginary space derived from sounds.

Additionally, CAO Lin, President of the Ninth Council of China Institute of Stage Design, Russian director Alina Chevik, ZHONG Hao, President of the China Musicals Association, German set designer Wolfgang Menardi and theatre director WANG Xiaoying will also share their valuable experiences and innovative ideas.

GUAN Jianbo, Vice President of the NCPA, said - At this year’s Forum, we will conduct an in-depth exploration of the intrinsic relationship between visual aesthetics and auditory aesthetics in terms of stage art, and how they work together to build an unforgettable stage experience when driven by both technology and art. The Forum is not only an academic and artistic exchange or a collision between ideas and inspirations, but also a grand event for the global set design industry. It will help to inject new vitality into the innovative development of global stage art.