Chinese Arts Now Festival 2019: The First Arts Festival Of Contemporary British Chinese Arts Across London

London is to host the first arts festival in the UK dedicated to British-Chinese performance and culture in 2019. The festival, which runs from 19 January to 2 February 2019, is produced by Chinese Arts Now (CAN), the new Arts Council funded body working with Chinese artists, both British born and from the Chinese diaspora. CAN Festival will showcase a diverse range of art forms (music, drama, live art, dance, films, digital arts) with over 60 events across London. The festival presents high-quality contemporary and innovative Chinese arts and aims to raise the representation of Chinese artists in the UK.

CAN Artistic Director (concert pianist and theatre director), An-Ting Chang says 'Chinese' - what does this word mean to the London public? Lion dances, food and Beijing opera? These are wonderful traditions from China. However, the reality is that Chinese people have been moving forward in contemporary society like everyone else in the world. Chinese people are not just those people living in mainland China during the time of the Emperors or the Cultural Revolution. There are many contemporary Chinese stories which have not been told yet.

CAN Festival will present contemporary British Chinese stories and new works that fuse Chinese heritage and European culture in innovative ways. We are proud to work with a wide range of talented British Chinese artists and to give them a platform at some of the most prestigious arts venues in London.'

Highlights of the CAN Festival -

CITIZENS OF NOWHERE? challenges the stereotypes of Chinese people in contemporary society and questions what 'foreign' means in the post-Brexit period. Written by award-winning writer, Ming Ho, and directed by David Jiang, this intimate performance by actors seated among the audience is experienced through headphones, as if eavesdropping on a family's conversation. Tickets include dim sum and refreshments courtesy of Duddell's London Bridge (the first Duddell's in Hong Kong is a highly regarded arts space and Michelin starred restaurant).

LSO ECLECTICA: EAST MEETS WEST presents a string quartet from the London Symphony Orchestra and a traditional Chinese string quartet with a mixture of European and Chinese repertoires at LSO St Luke's. The programme will show the influence of the two cultures on each other's musical languages, and culminate in an octet combining the two groups composed by British Chinese composer, Keting Sun especially for this event.

BOUNCE BEAT is a concert presenting live ping pong percussion with a piano trio (piano, clarinet and cello) as part of Southbank Centre's Soundstate Festival. The concert features two table tennis players trained in the province leagues in China, and five British Chinese composers: Nicola Chang, Angelus Marr, Raymond Yiu, Alex Ho and An-Ting Chang.

LAO CAN IMPRESSION is a fusion of concert and theatre directed by CAN Artistic Director, An-Ting Chang. Three musicians highlight the eastern influences in Debussy's music while two actors tell Liu's story about westernisation in China in the 1900s. After a sell-out run at The National Theatre of Taiwan, this unique production will have its London premiere at Southbank Centre's Purcell Room.

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE is a theatre experience at Artsadmin and Chinese Community Centre by Jo Fong & Sonia Hughes, which is told through a series of conversations between audiences. The work explores a sense of belonging as intimate and powerful, connected, optimistic, unknown and curious making, and will challenge audiences' perception about what community is.

GHOST GIRL//GWEI MUI/ Born to Cantonese parents but fostered and raised by a white British family, theatre director Jennifer Tang's new show at Camden People's Theatre asks what it really means to be British Chinese in contemporary England, and whether we can ever truly accept our own personal identities.

LOVE SONGS Alissa Anne Jeun Yi's company Trip Hazards has been chosen by The Guardian as one of 'five of the UK's best young theatre companies'. Love Songs at Camden People's Theatre mixes get-on-the-dance-floor music, rap and spoken word; exploring the personal and political puzzles of our lives through the autobiographical poems of a hopeless romantic.

RED INK is a dance theatre work by exciting young choreographer Si Rawlinson through his company Wayward Thread. An international cast of male dancers embody the struggle between the desires of a state and its citizens. Bodies fly and ink runs...An artful and pulse-quickening mix of break/hip hop and contemporary dance.

GLOBAL SOUNDSCAPES/ TANGRAM: YANGQIN TRIO is a double-bill concert at LSO St Luke's presenting experimental classical music and avant-garde styles applied to traditional Chinese instruments. The renowned pianist, Belle Chen (London Music Award), integrates classical music, soundscapes, electronics, and improvisation to recreate locations from around the world. Tangram are a new trio, composed of Reylon Yount (Yangqin in Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble), Beibei Wang (percussion), and Daniel Shao (flute). Their performance, featuring new compositions by Alex Ho questions conventional conceptions of "Chinese" and "Western". The trio opens a window into the space that exists beyond those definitions through this concert.

There will be 62 events during the 15 days across London, celebrating the contemporary and innovative Chinese culture.

Website: chineseartsnow.org.uk

 

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