List of Monumental sculpture projects 2015

  • 1 http://swannbb.blogspot.fr/2015/02/sunday-robot-play.html
  • 2 http://shuengitswannjie.blogspot.fr/2015/02/interactive-reading-room-tea-house-2015.html
  • 3 http://swannbb.blogspot.fr/2014/06/neo-ming-bed-luxembourg.html
  • 4 http://swannbb.blogspot.fr/2013/02/yuzi-paradise-tell-moon.html
  • 5 http://swannbb.blogspot.com/2011/09/12th-changchun-international-sculpture.html
  • 6 http://www.saatchionline.com/Shuen-git

Friday 12 June 2009

2009 Digital Guqin Museum presents at: CHIME meeting Brussels Nov 09; DGM story book

LianHuanHua 连环画 /BD/Comic book : of Digital Guqin Museum Story

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69077492@N00/sets/72157619515725129/show/


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Digital Guqin Museum presents at: CHIME meeting Brussels Nov 09,
Theme Five: World of Guqin

complete programme here:

Upcoming CHIME meetings

Latest update: 10 June, 2009

Chinese and East Asian Music: The Future of the Past

14th International CHIME Conference
Musical Instruments Museum (MIM), Brussels, Belgium
18-22 November, 2009

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Theme 5 ­ The world of guqin

CHOW, Shuen-Git Natasha , Digital Guqin Museum Virtual World - Real World, Nogent-sur-Marne, France
Digital Guqin Museum: Preservation, promotion and development of the guqin through an online immersive Virtual World - Secondlife; Real World : Mobile Music HuaHui House

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Latest update: 10 June, 2009

Chinese and East Asian Music: The Future of the Past

14th International CHIME Conference
Musical Instruments Museum (MIM), Brussels, Belgium
18-22 November, 2009


The CHIME meeting, on 'Chinese and East Asian Music: The Future of the Past', will take place at the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) in Brussels from 18 to 22 November 2009. We look forward to an impressive programme, with over 60 presentations, supplemented with numerous concert performances and workshops.

We received a formidable number of submissions for the meeting, almost twice the number we thought we might be able to harbour! Not surprisingly, it has taken our Programme Committee great pains and effort to finalize its decisions, and to think of practical solutions. Below, we present the papers and events that have been selected for inclusion in our programme.

The programme will be finalized in October. Keynote speakers will be announced in August.

In early June we will issue on this website a list of possibilities for hotel and youth hostel booking, and a pre-registration form. Given the size and scope of the Europalia Festival and the numbers of visitors expected, we kindly urge you to book accommodation in Brussels as early as possible.

We look forward to welcoming everyone at the MIM in November. Anyone not presenting a paper, but interested in attending the conference programme and the concerts as a listener, is most welcome to register, too. The conference is a scholarly meeting, but open to anyone interested in Chinese and East Asian music.

Conference participants who play traditional musical instruments may want to bring them to our informal musical 'corridor gatherings'.

See you in Brussels in November!

Contact
For practical questions concerning the conference, please contact the organizer, Mrs Clarie Chantrenne at: claire.chantrenne@mim.fgov.be

Or via postal mail:
Mme Claire Chantrenne
Musical Instruments Museum (MIM)
1 rue Villa Hermosa
B-1000 Brussels
Belgium

For questions about the conference programme, the concerts and exhibitions, you can contact Frank Kouwenhoven at CHIME, European Foundation for Chinese Music Research, Postbox 11092, 2301 EB Leiden, The Netherlands, e-mail: chime@wxs.nl, telephone +31-71-5133.974.

Main conference theme
What are the future prospects for numerous musical genres (and instruments and stylistacal traits) from China and East Asia's past? This theme will be explored from a wide range of angles, such as:

- Development, preservation and reconstructions of musical instruments

- Preservation and continuation of traditional and 'folk' music

- Reconstruction or re-emergence of historical genres

- Continuation of elements from the past in reinvented traditions and in new music

- Conservation and use of recordings, fieldwork materials and collected objects

Special guests, fringe programme, and Europalia Festival
Among the special guests in this meeting we welcome the local shadow puppeteers of Huanxian (East Gansu), the Beijing zheng trio San Chuan (who combine age-old Chinese string idioms with a jazzy groove) , well-known senior masters of Chinese string solo instruments such as Li Guangzu (pipa), Chen Qijun (Chaozhou style zheng), Ding Chengyun and Fu Lina (qin and reconstructed se), senior marionette theatre specialist Wang Jingxian from Fujian, prominent contemporary composers Guo Wenjing (Beijing) and Liu Xing (Shanghai), as well as the much talked about contemporary theatre director Li Liuyi (Beijing), plus numerous young Chinese scholars and artists.
You will have occasion to hear the guqin (the classical Chinese 7-stringed zither) played as you have never heard it played before, will be able to attend vocal workshops on folk song, qin songs and Chinese opera led by renowned specialists. All of this will take place in eminently fitting surroundings, with a lot more Chinese music and culture to enjoy, thanks to the impressive 2009-2010 edition of the Europalia festival of which the CHIME conference will be a part.

The upcoming edition of this festival, a biennial event, will be devoted to China. The festival encompasses no less than eighty (!) concerts of Chinese music, with more than 1,000 artists, as well as some forty exhibitions, and countless other activities, in a period spanning four months. Among the many highlights will be performances by the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, the China National Traditional Orchestra (Beijing), but also numerous concerts by rural traditional ensembles and groups, of which several have not performed in the West before. From rowdy shawms and four-stringed fiddles played with bows as thick as broomsticks to the latest fashions in Chinese heavy metal, pop, jazz, and contemporary dance, the festival will have something to offer for everyone's taste!

Preliminary list of conference themes and presenters

Theme 1 - Musical instruments


CHENG, Lancini Jen-Hao, Phd Student University of Otago, New Zealand
The Development, Preservation, and Reconstruction of Formosan Aboriginal Musical Instruments

CHENG Yu, SOAS, University of London, England, UK
Reintroducing the 5th string - Creating the Lost Tang Dynasty (8th Century) 5-stringed pipa for the 21st Century

DING Chengyun & FU Lina, Wuhan Conservatory of Music
Origins, reconstruction and development of the ancient se zither and its music

FUJITA, Rinko, Vienna
The Tradition and Ingenuity: Taishogoto, the First Keyboard Instrument in Japan

HAN Mei, Vancouver, Canada
Phoenix Rising, Bastions Fall: Challenging the Stereotypical Depiction of the Chinese Zheng and Reinstating Individual Expression

JAEHNICHEN, Gisa, Music Dept, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Chinese versus Lao Temple Drums in Northern Laos

KIBIROVA, Sanat, St Petersburg University of Culture and Arts
Revival and Reconstruction of Musical Instruments of Kazakhstan's Uyghurs

LIN Chen, Music Research Institute, Beijing
The improvement of instruments in the early period after the establishment of the People's Republic of China

LIU XING, Bandu Café, Shanghai
'Guang ling san' for zhongruan (Chinese guitar) - Transmission and critical assessment

LIU Yong, Dept of Musicology, China Conservatory of Music
The Revival of 'Si Bin Fu Qing' (Chinese chime stones)

WANG Hua, Music School, Minzu University of China
Xianzi, a Tibetan plucked stringed musical instrument

ZHOU MING, Music College, Shandong University of Arts, China
Cuo Qin - Chinese Folk Music Instrument


Theme 2 - Music and ritual: issues of conflict and change

BAN Junrong, Music Department, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, China
The protection and development of the art of Longdong suona (shawm and percussion music from Eastern Gansu)

CANEY, Arlene, Music Dept, Community College of Philadelphia
Perception of the Uighurs in Chinese Performances

CHMELARCIK, Jan, Sinology Dept, Charles University, Prague
Music of Development: Traditional Music, Folk Ritual and Land Policy in Southwest Shandong

CROMPHOUT, Anne Laure, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Cultural Transmission or Cultural Preservation: The Transformation of Amdo Tibetan Music

GAUTHARD, Nathalie, Dept Arts and Ethnology, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, France
Between Religion and Entertainment: Creation of a Transnational Form of Tibetan Sacred Dance

KOUWENHOVEN, Frank, CHIME Foundation, Leiden, Netherlands
Chinese Temple Festival Dynamics

LIU Guiteng, Cultural Ministry, Dandong, China
Drum in the Mongolian Shamanistic Huderqolu Ritual of the Bargu District

LIU Hong, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, China
Daoist Ritual Music in Shanghai

PICARD, Francois, Musicology Department, University of Sorbonne-Paris IV
Long-time Permanence of Musical Repertoires in Ritual Practice

REES, Helen, Music Dept, UCLA
The Future of China's Musical Past: Snapshots from Yunnan

XIAO Mei, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, China
Crowning of a Spirit Medium (Guangxi, China)

TAN Hwee-San, SOAS, University of London, UK
"Intangible Cultural Heritage with Chinese characteristics": The Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage in China, an examination of Government Policies and Their Implications

THORAVAL, Fanch, University of paris Sorbonne, Paris IV, France (et al)
Music, sound and gesture: change and continuity in ritual traditions [Panel]

THORAVAL, Fanch, University of paris Sorbonne, Paris IV, France
The Hidden and the Shown: Some Change in the Sound Dimension of the Daoist Liturgy

TSAO Pen-yeh, Shanghai Conservatory of Music (et al)
Ritual Soundscape in China's Belief System: Three Field Sketches [Panel]


Theme 3 ­ Rethinking the musical past


CROSSLAND-GUO Shuyun, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
The Quanzhou Nanyin: Historical Connections and Present Manifestations in the Southern Folk Operas

ERDENECHIMEG, Luvsannorov, Bloomington, Indiana
Research on the Historical Manuscripts of the Yuan Dynasty: Aspects of Palace Music in Volumes 70 and 71

FU Limin, China Conservatory of Music, Beijing, China
Study Report on 'Hebei Shenfang Concert'

LEE Ching-huei, Dept of Trad Music, Taipei National University of the Arts
Beyond the Innovation: the Change and Decline of Gongche Notation Used in Shingaku in Japan

MCCURLEY, Dallas, Dept of Theatre, Drama and Dance, Queens College, CUNY
On the Role of Martiality in the History of Xi

MIDDENDORF, Ulrike, Institute of Chinese Studies, University of Heidelberg
Lament and Praise Songs (yintan qu): Some Notes on an Early Chinese Song Genre

SHEEN Dae-Cheol, The Academy of Korean Studies, Republic of Korea
The Transmission of Two Pieces of Chinese Music and Their Influence on Korean Music

THRASHER, Alan, Music Dept, UBC Vancouver
Sizhu Music in Perspective: Rethinking the Ancient Origins Belief

TIEN, Adrien, National University of Singapore
Musical-linguistic interface as preservation and continuation of traditional Chinese music

WANG Ling, Yunnan University, Foreign Languages Dept, Kunming, China
Classifications and Characteristics of the Images of Prehistoric Dances on Cangyuan Cliff Paintings

WELLS, Marnix, London, UK
Recovery of Lost Musics: 'that strain again, it had a dying fall!'

WEN Qiou-Ju, Music Dept Taiwan National University, Taipei
On the Musicological Concept of Quanzhou Qu's 'Men-tou'


Theme 4 ­ Japanese music: Cultural policies and issues of continuity

CHOKI Seiji, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Cultural Politics of the Japanese Government during the Great East Asia War

GOTTSCHEWSKI, Hermann, The University of Tokyo, Japan
The Role of Music for the Japanese Cultural Policy in the Colonial Period (1895-1945) [Panel]

GOTTSCHEWSKI, Hermann, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Gagaku and Pan-Asianism

LEE Kyungboon, Seoul University, Korea
Europeanized Tradition as Propaganda - Ahn Eaktai's Etenraku in Context of the Japanese Cultural Policy During the Second World War

NAKA Mamiko, Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts, Kyoto, Japan
How Japanese Residents in China studied Japanese Traditional Music in the Early 20th Century


Theme 5 ­ The world of guqin

BONVINI, Luca, Paris, France
Transcription of Western Modal Music for Guqin

CHOW, Shuen-Git Natasha , Digital Guqin Museum Virtual World - Real World, Nogent-sur-Marne, France
Digital Guqin Museum: Preservation, promotion and development of the guqin through an online immersive Virtual World - Secondlife; Real World : Mobile Music HuaHui House


DYDO, Stephen, New York Qin Society, NY, America
Tang Melodies in Contemporary Performance

MAEDER, Marion, University of Cologne, Germany
Giving in to Modernity, Past and Humor - Traditional Guqin Music Today

ROBERTS, Jeffrey, Beijing Center for Chinese Studies
Li Xiangting and Guqin Improvisation: New Direction or Recreation of an Ancient Tradition?

YANG Yuanzheng, Department of Music, The University of Hong Kong
Demystifying the Golden Age Craftsmanship of Qin Making


Theme 6 ­ Innovating Chinese music and theatre in modern times

BEHEYDT, Renaat, Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst, Leuven, Belgium
Traditional roots in contemporary 'classical' music. The work of Zhang Haofu

BERNARD, Marie-Helene, University Paris-IV La Sorbonne, France
New Music, Old Instruments

ENG, Clare Sher Ling, Dept. of Music, Yale University, Brooklyn NY
Sounds of Old China Rising During the Cultural Revolution

GRAUSO, Monia, University Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
Liu Sola and her New Chinese Jazz Music

GUO Wenjing, Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing
Writing for Chinese and Western orchestra [Interview]

KO Yi-Fang, Music Dept, University of maruland, Baltimore, USA
Pipa in contemporary music. Invention, Dissemination, Transformation of traditional Instrumental Music

LAM Ching-wah, Hong Kong Baptist University, HK
Musical Innovations in Huangmei Opera Films in Hong Kong and Taiwan

LAW HO Chak, The University of Hong Kong
Questioning how kunqu becomes 'a heritage to be modernized' - A concise study on the musical accompaniment of Bai Xian-yong's 'youth version' of of the kunqu play Peony Pavilion

LEUNG, David, Hong Kong University
Wenren Aesthetics and Hong Kong Contemporary Music

LIEN Hsien-Sheng, Humanities Research Center of the National Science Council, Taiwan, ROC
Sound, Song and Cultural Memory - Examples from Contemporary Taiwanese Music

LI Liuyi, Beijing
Traditional Chinese Theatre in New Guise: A Contemporary Stage Director's Views [Interview]

PIRAS, Marta, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy
Mozart and Beethoven in Mandopop: the hit-single 'Don't wannna grow up' (Bu xiang zhangda) from S.H.E.

TAN Shzr Ee, Royal Holloway University, London, UK
The Rise and Fall of 'Red' Accordions and Harmonicas in Singapore

WANG Jingxian, Quanzhou Marionette Puppet Theatre, Fujian
Preserving the ritual Mulian plays, innovating Chinese puppetry [Interview]

ZOLLITSCH, Robert, Munich, Germany / Beijing, China
Young musicians trained at Chinese conservatories - their situation and perspectives


Poster session


A number of lecture presentations will take place in the framework of a poster session. Presenters invited for this session have already received individual notice about this via email. For the poster session, presenters will be provided with standard-size cartons, on which they can stick photos, printed or written texts etc. We will have cartons, scissors and glue ready in Brussels, but presenters are kindly requested to prepare print-outs and photoprints at home and bring them to Brussels. Visitors will be able watch the posters like in an exhibition; the poster session in its entirety works somewhat like a 'market', with a crowd moving around freely and individually. We will reserve a timeslot of 90 to 120 minutes for this session, with no parallel activities taking place. Presenters can take questions from individual visitors, and may have computers with headphones ready (we will take care of connecting points) to demonstrate moving images or sound examples. In our experience, the poster session is an attractive an effective alternative format for introducing research topics, With the number of presentations offered for Brussels, it is also the only way to schedule everyone whose abstracts have been accepted.


Workshops and Demonstrations

GONG Linna, Beijing, China
Workshop on Chinese Folk Song Singing

ZHAO Chunyan, Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe
Workshop on Peking Opera singing and dance

XIE Zhen, Huanxian Daoist Shadow Puppet Theatre, Gansu
Demonstration: musical instruments and the operation of shadow puppets (with members of the group)

WANG Jingxian, Quanzhou Marionette Puppet Theatre, Fujian
Demonstration: Operating Chinese marionettes (with members of the group)




Concerts and performances


During the 5-day period of the CHIME meeting, a great many concerts of Chinese music will be scheduled in Belgium, for which you can purchase tickets at your own leisure. These include traditional Chinese theatre performances by the Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe, the Huanxian shadow puppeteers and Living Dance Studio in Brussels and Antwerp. Composer Guo Wenjing's fine new opera trilogy 'Heroines' will receive its Belgian premiere, and Liu Sola and other cross-over artists will give concerts in Brussels. Antwerp will host a Shanghai Cultural Week, with Muhai Tang conducting the Flanders Opera Orchestra in works by Chinese composers. The Quanzhou Marionette Theatre of Fujian will perform in Brussels, Eupen and Liege. In the wake of the CHIME meeting, BOZAR in Brussels will organize a China weekend on 5 and 6 December featuring Kun opera, as well as Tibetan, Mongolian, Uighur, Yi, Hani, Zhuang and other ethnic vocal music, plus more puppet theatre (from Zhangzhou) and numerous other events. For more on the programme, you can consult the Europalia festival website at www.europalia.be (details to be published after press conference 7 May 2009)

But even if you will just be in Brussels for CHIME, and decide only to follow the CHIME programme, you will not be able to escape a great deal of live music-making and performances.
The concerts and demonstrations scheduled below will be included in the registration fee for the conference, except for the Chinese opera performance on Saturday 21 November:

18 November (afternoon): Quanzhou Marionette Theatre
Afternoon opening of the CHIME conference by one of China's finest puppet play ensembles of today, (and much more)!

18 November (evening): Guqin, on different terms

"Hey, not guqin again, please...!"

Well, we opted for a difference, and organize a yaji ('elegant meeting') that may not be elegant at times, but pleasing (and shocking) enough in its own right. Here are musicians to make you feel nostalgic about the future of the past, because they shape new vistas for China's oldest and most venerated 'high-brow' string instrument.

Senior masters Ding Chengyun and Fu Lina from Wuhan will play unheard-of duets for qin and se (another type of ancient zither). Lin Chen, young disciple of the celebrated traditional master Lin Youren, adds new dimensions to the deep tranquility and power of her father's style of qin playing. She also accompanies Beijing-based singer Gong Linna in a series of ancient classical as well as newly-composed qin songs, transversing an amazing range of Chinese dialects. Co-support is offered by Wang Hua on bamboo flute. Liu Xing, from Shanghai, succesfully transfers the repertoire of the guqin to zhongruan, making it sound like avant-garde, and Luca Bonvini, one of the West's finest qin players, performs John Coltrane on qin. He turns the classical seven-stringed zither into the saxiest of Chinese instruments.

Ding Chengyun, qin, Wuhan conservatory
Fu Lina, se, Wuhan conservatory
Gong Linna, vocals, Beijing)
Lin Chen, qin, Music Research Institute, Beijing
Wang Hua, dizi bamboo flute, Beijing
Liu Xing, zhongruan, Shanghai
Luca Bonvini, qin, Italy/Paris

19 November (morning): Huanxian Daoist Shadow Theatre
Demonstration of the puppets and the ensemble music of a truly fine traditional rural ensemble from Huanxian, East Gansu. At home they perform in temple festivals, and help to cure the sick and the needy. In Brussels, there will be opportunity for curious conference-goers to try out the puppets and the shadow screen for themselves, but also, perhaps, to get blessed by a pantheon of local Gansunese gods and spirits! Those who like to explore the full range of this group's (magnificent) repertoire may want to attend the evening programmes of 20 and 21 November at the Theatre National in Brussels.

19 November (evening): China Blossoms
The old clashes with the new in friendly fashion in this remarkable bouquet of Chinese string instrumental music, adorned with film interviews. The time-honoured art of Li Guangzu, splendid senior pipa master of the silk string era (son of the famous Li Tingsong) is contrasted here with the virtuoso modern-style pipa playing of Zhao Cong, a fantastic young pipa soloist from Beijing. Likewise, Chen Qijun, only in his forties, and already one of the finest traditional style performers of Chaozhou (southern Chinese style) zheng music, will pitch his introvert and meditative traditional solos against the sexy ensemble pieces of the Beijing zheng trio 'San Chuan'. All these performers, steeped in very different musical styles and epochs, can truly make their strings sing, and they perform with rare commitment. Forget about 'the conservatory style' - come and hear this!

Li Guangzu, pipa, Beijing
Zhao Cong, pipa, Beijing
Chen Qijun, zheng, Chaozhou
Wang Yao, zheng, Beijing
Liu Yu, zheng, Beijing
Sang Ka, zheng, Beijing

21 November: Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe: The Silver Serpent

A crew of nearly eighty from Shanghai will assemble at the Bourla Theatre in Antwerp for a grand-style performance of the Peking Opera classic 'The Legend of the White Snake'. A feast for the eye and the ear, and one of this group's most succesful productions in recent years. Since Antwerp is only half an hour from Brussels, we hope to be able to get our conference participants there comfortably by buss.

22 November: MIM afternoon jamboree
A free for all Sunday afternoon concert by CHIME participants in the main concert hall of the Musical Instrumental Museum Brussels, to conclude our 2009 conference in festive style. Be prepared for surprises, and don't hesitate to contribute to the surprise element yourself!


Exhibitions


The Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) will host an exhibition on Chinese musical instruments, illuminating a broad variety of urban and rural musical traditions. Since CHIME will be hosted by the MIM, concert participants will have ample opportunity to enjoy the displays. The Europalia Festival will host a total of some forty exhibitions devoted to China, including a presentation on folklore art, and numerous cultural exhibitions.

The Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR) will host several major events, notably an exhibition devoted to Chinese emperors, and one devoted to Chinese literati life. One further exhibition that we would like to bring to your special attention will deal with Chinese puppetry, in all its aspects. We are promised a truly gorgeous display, with numerous interactive installations and live demonstrations. Since puppetry is also one of the major themes of the Europalia Festival (with five different groups from China participating), you can read more about this event below.

The world of Chinese puppetry, Bozar, November-December 2009
China may not have its own Pulcinella or Pinocchio, but it has the Monkey King: a magically gifted monkey who frightens the wits out of the Gods in Heaven by stealing the Peaches of Immortality, and eating them all! The Monkey King shares with his European counterparts not only a highly volatile character, or a rare combination of virtue, cleverness and naughtiness, but also ­ in the case of Pulcinella ­ many of his mystical and carnivalesque connotations. For people who love puppetry, China's miniature stages and shadow screens may soon have a homely feel!

Puppetry in China, as in so many parts of the world, emerged thousands of years ago as a magical theatre in the framework of religious observances. Its stories offer ample room for moralizing and ritual doctrine, but Chinese puppet plays are first and foremost packed with action. Many performers are great masters of their art, whose puppets execute the most incredible actions and acrobatic feats. Puppets dress or undress, smoke, drink wine, play musical instruments, dance and move like human beings... The gamut of Chinese puppet plays ­ like that of its bigger stage pendant, Chinese opera ­ runs from delicate lyrical drama to spectacular fighting scenes, from classical romance to slapstick. Most puppet plays are actually operas, with one or more singers and instrumental accompaniment, and countless regional genres and musical styles have emerged in the course of time in almost every part of China.

Puppetry frequently transcends the world of ordinary man, and explores the realms of the super-powerful, the supernatural, and the fantastic: in Chinese genres, we may run into the Goddess of the Moon, or meet a procession of musicking animal spirits, or watch the Eight Immortals at work, floating by on high clouds... A truly impressive wealth of different genres ­ from shadow theatre to marionette theatre, from stick and glove puppets to water puppets, from rod puppets to 'flesh' puppets ­ is matched by an equally impressive craftsmanship on the part of puppet makers and related craftsmen. The exquisitely carved wooden puppets from the National Arts Museum of China in this exhibition may serve as a case in point.

Chinese puppetry today flourishes in a great many different contexts, from rural rituals to modern urban stage entertainment, from TV animation to cyberspace games. If, in the last two centuries, China's turbulent history has seen an initial decline of many traditional forms, it has also witnessed many splendid revivals and new developments. New media now offer fierce competition to local puppet shows, but they have also given important impulses to the innovation of puppetry, as this rich exhibition will show. Fluorescent paint, laser light, computer-steered animation and a wide range of other new techniques are now used to guide (or misguide!) the spectator's eye.

In the meantime, many rural traditions in China continue to thrive beyond expectation, with their local ritual functions intact. This exhibition draws in particular on the local shadow puppetry of Huanxian, a barren region in eastern Gansu (West China), where more than forty shadow puppet troupes continue to be active today. With Chinese New Year, when fireworks are lit in this region¹s capital, it is nearly impossible to round any street corner of the small town without bumping into a shadow theatre performance! The delicate 'cowskin babies' ­ as they are lovingly called ­ of local Huanxian artisans are not only fine samples of craftsmanship, but are sometimes hardly any less fantastic or capricious than the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch or Hokusai.

Puppet groups performing in Belgium in the framework of Europalia are: the Marionette Theatre of Quanzhou, the Zhangzhou Handpuppet Theatre from Fujian, the Yangzhou hand and wire puppet ensemble from Jiangsu, the Tangshan Municipal Shadow Theatre Company, and the Daoist Shadow Theatre from Huanxian (Gansu).

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