YOUTH
20 | Wednesday, August 7, 2019 CHINA DAILY
T
he Lion King roared new
life into the career of a tal-
ented artist and helped
tug at the strings of pup-
petry creativity. The musical, based
on the 1994 Disney animated fea-
ture film of the same name, was
staged in Shanghai in 2006. Gao
Guiyu, a fresh graduate with a mas-
ter’s degree, was in the audience
that night.
“That musical left a deep impres-
sion. I was young and ambitious,
had watched lots of theater produc-
tions and read a number of books
about theater,” recalls Gao, 36, who
was born and raised in Weihai,
Shandong province.
“The director Julie Taymor
inspired me to explore the world of
puppets. They can provoke creativi-
ty, imagination and the sense of
possibility,” adds Gao, who later
gained his doctorate in 2014 after
studying at the Central Academy of
Drama. Following graduation he
became a teacher at the Inner Mon-
golia Arts University, based in Hoh-
hot, the capital of Inner Mongolia
autonomous region.
Last summer, along with his stu-
dents, Gao staged Hero Khairab ,
based on the folk tale of a hunter
boy, Khairab, who sacrificed him-
self to save the people of his vil-
lage.
The play, featuring puppets
made of bamboo and cloth, will be
premiered on Aug 7 in Beijing, as
part of the Golden Hedgehog Col-
lege Theater Festival, an annual
student theater festival launched in
2001 by the Beijing Theater Associ-
ation.
Puppets have captured the imag-
ination of Chinese audiences for
generations.
Kuilei xi (puppet play) is a tradi-
tional Chinese folk art form dating
back to the Han Dynasty (
BC-AD 220). Materials, such as
wood, bamboo, iron and cloth, are
used to make them.
For his play, Gao created over 20
handmade puppets with 23 of his
students. The largest puppet, a
bird, is about 8 meters tall.
“The story is full of animals,
plants and gods, so puppets are
great tools to portray those roles,”
says Gao.
Student Lu Xiaochen, 19, plays
the lead role of Khairab, he adds.
“The actors and production
team members are students of act-
ing and stage design of the univer-
sity,” Gao says.
“It’s the first time that we creat-
ed a play to be staged at the college
theater festival. We are excited.”
Composer Lu Guang, also a
teacher at the university, wrote 15
original music scores for the play.
She borrows heavily from Mon-
golian ethnic elements, such as
khoomei (throat-singing) and
morin khuur , or the horse-head
fiddle, to tell the story which is pop-
ular among the Mongolian people
in the autonomous region.
Hero Khairab is one of the 11
plays being staged at the Golden
Hedgehog College Theater Festival
which is being held until Aug 17 in
the capital.
These plays were selected out of
79 plays that were submitted for
consideration to the festival orga-
nizers by 55 universities and col-
leges from 21 provinces,
municipalities and autonomous
regions all over China this year.
Since its inaugural event in 2001,
more than 1,100 universities and
colleges of China participated in
the festival and more than 300
plays have been staged.
China Agricultural University’s
play, Song of Farming , opened the
festival on Aug 2 at Nine Theater,
the Chaoyang Culture Center, with
two shows.
The play follows the university’s
history concerning agricultural
research and the efforts of work-
ing with farmers in Quzhou coun-
ty, Hebei province, in a bid to
alleviate poverty. It is set against
the backdrop of the 1970s.
According to Xu Wei, director of
the center which is a co-founder of
the festival, school plays and ama-
teur dramas are popular in univer-
sities.
“The festival showcases what the
drama scene is like on campus now— very diverse and experimental,”
Xu says.
“Students are open to various
art forms and are very innovative,
not afraid of breaking the rules of
theater.”
One of the school drama troupes
is Wu Wen. It was founded in
Tsinghua University in 2014 and
about 100 students will take part
in performing The Moon Lady on
Aug 12 and 13.
The original play is directed by
Luo Qixue, an English language
literature major at Tsinghua Uni-
versity.
“Though student drama troupes
are amateur, we create and per-
form with a professional attitude,”
says the 22-year-old director, who
was born and raised in Nanjing,
Jiangsu province.
Luo learned Peking Opera and
Kunqu Opera in high school and
college and studied withrenowned theater director Tian
Qinxin. Luo plans further study in
directing at the Central Academy
of Drama after graduation.
Another director, Du Yuan, 28,
has just obtained her master’s
degree from the National Academy
of Chinese Theatre Arts.
She directed her latest Peking
Opera play last summer, entitled
Fugui Shouyan (Wealth and Nobil-
ity Extending to Eternity).
It was staged on Aug 3 in Beijing
at the festival after premiering in
December at the theater of the
National Academy of Chinese The-
atre Arts.
Du wrote an original script for
the play, inspired by the public
discussion of medical treatment
following the 2018 movie, Dying
to Survive , depicting patients try-
ing to access costly cancer treat-
ments.
“We wanted to use traditional
Peking Opera to tell a story, which
is related to a contemporary social
issue,” says Du.
One of the aspects of the play
was the use of four main chou
actors. Traditionally these “clown
characters” have minor roles in
Peking Opera, compared with
sheng (male roles) and dan (female
roles).
“I wanted to break with conven-
tion and the feedback from the
audience was good,” Du says.
“The humor of chou actors fits
the comedy well and the audience
could understand their lines easily
since most of them are recited
rather than sung.”
Du, born in Xinyang city, Henan
province, was introduced to
Peking Opera by her grandfather
and father, both Peking Opera
actors of a local art troupe. She
grew up watching their perform-
ances.
Peking Opera has a history
spanning more than 200 years and
combines several art forms,
including singing, dancing, mar-
tial arts and acrobatics.
UNESCO declared it as an
Intangible Cultural Heritage of
Humanity in 2010.
According to Xu, over the past 18
years, the festival has established
the reputations of a number of
young theater directors who are
now the backbone of national the-
ater.
One is Huang Ying, who decided
to become a theater director after
watching the classic play Antique
by Beijing People’s Art Theatre, in
1997.
Huang majored in biochemistry
and molecular biology at the China
Agricultural University in Beijing.
He then studied directing at the
Central Academy of Drama with
professor Ding Ruru.
Now, one of the most successful
theater directors in China, the
40-year-old has 44 plays under his
belt.
“When you sit in a theater to
watch a great play, it’s always an
inspiring experience, which makes
you think. For those who want to
perform on stage, the theater is a
magic place to express and commu-
nicate,” says Huang, who has been
teaching at the Beijing Film Acade-
my since 2005.Contact the writer at
[email protected]Students take part in
biodiversity camp
By XING YI in Shanghai
[email protected]For two and a half days, Wang
Shuyue examined different plants
along a 4-kilometer river that flows
through Dongwu village near the
Qiandao Lake (Thousand Island
Lake) in East China’s Zhejiang prov-
ince.
Together with her teammates
from the environmental engineer-
ing faculty at Zhejiang University,
Wang identified 209 species of trees,
shrubs and grass. They then wrote a
100-page report about the local veg-
etation for the villagers.
Wang was part of just one of many
teams at the July 21-27 biodiversity
summer camp for youths that was
jointly held by the local government
and the Zhejiang Environmental
Protection Association. More than
50 students from 10 universities
participated in the camp.
Besides embarking on research
projects, participants also got to
attend lectures by professors from
universities such as Tsinghua,
Fudan and Tongji.
In another group, Wang Sheng-
nan and her classmates from Zheji-
ang University of Technology
surveyed the endangered plant Tax-
us chinensis, also known as Chinese
yew, in Gaoshan village.
“We measured 27 Chinese yew
trees in the village, most of which
are about 400 to 500 years old,” she
says. “We later drew a map to show
the locations of the trees and gave
some suggestions to the villagers
about how they could protect
them.”
Mou Jian, Party chief of Dashu
township, says the reports compiled
by the students can be a useful refer-ence for their planning on the pro-
tection of biodiversity in the area.
Zheng Wei, an economics student
at Fudan University who attended
the camp, says that though his
major is not related to environmen-
tal studies, he has always wanted to
contribute to the protection of the
environment.
“I lived in a rural village in Jiangxi
province when I was a child. The
environment was very good — there
were many fish in the river and ani-
mals and insects in the mountain,”
he says. “When I grew up and moved
to the city, I felt separated from
nature.”
One of the highlights of the camp,
Zheng adds, was learning how local
businesses are adopting green
approaches to producing agricultur-
al products so as to preserve the
environment while generating
income for locals.
Wang Xin, vice-president of the
Institute of Environment for Sus-
tainability of Tongji University, says:
“The event has helped young people
to understand the relationship
between city and countryside, and
how nature has been sustaining the
growth of the city.”
Speaking about the event, Yu
Wei, deputy secretary-general of
the Zhejiang Environmental Pro-
tection Association, says: “In light
of China being the host of the 15th
Conference of the Parties to the
Convention on Biological Diversity
in 2020, we organized this summer
camp to give Chinese youth the
opportunity to be involved in pro-
tecting biodiversity.
“We are also trying to establish a
model for the promotion of public
participation and environmental
education among Chinese people.”Mongolian youngsters
see sights in Shanghai
By CAO CHEN in Shanghai
[email protected]Students from Mongolia
embarked on a seven-day trip to
Shanghai starting on Aug 2 as part of
the Dream Journey Student Travel
Program. The trip will end on Aug 8.
Organized by the Shanghai
Adream Charitable Foundation,
the program enables students to
visit places in Shanghai they are
interested in.
“This year marks the 70th anni-
versary of the establishment of
bilateral relations between China
and Mongolia,” says Lu Hongyong,
Belt and Road affairs director at
Shanghai Adream Charitable
Foundation.
“We expect the landmarks, cul-
ture and people to impress the stu-
dents and enhance bilateral
communication between the two
countries in the near future.”
A total of nine students — four
from high schools in Mongolia and
five from Grade 5 to 7 — have been
grouped into two teams according
to their age before being given the
opportunity to explore cultural
venues such as the Shanghai Natu-
ral History Museum, Shanghai
Botanical Garden and Yu Gardern.
The teenagers also visited local
tech companies including Putao
Technology and Delixi Electric.
According to Lu, who is responsi-
ble for the program, the trip for
each team is designed by the team
members themselves, with help
from Chinese and Mongolian
teachers.
“They planned the routes, fig-
ured out the budget and also took
their peers’ interest into considera-
tion, and this helped to nurture
their critical thinking and organi-zational skills,” says Nyamzul Bat-
sukh, manager from Unlimited
Edu, the Mongolian partner of
Adream.
As the group of students Batsukh
led are eager to learn more about
the lifestyle, history and culture of
the city, they have planned trips to
museums, including the China Art
Museum, which is one of the largest
in Asia.
The team has also decided to visit
traditional gardens and ancient
temples as well as watch cultural
performances so as to learn more
about the community spirit in the
city.
“For most of the students, this is
their first trip to Shanghai. Every-
thing is new and we hope they will
learn more about its people, culture
and history,” says Batsukh.
Ankhil Erdenebat, a 17-year-old
from Mongolia, says she is excited to
see how beautiful and amazing
Shanghai is.
“I will share my experience with
my friends back home,” says Erde-
nebat.Students from the Inner Mongolia Arts University perform Hero Khairab, directed by their teacher, Gao Guiyu, based on the folklore of a
hunter boy who sacrificed himself to save the people of his village. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Students make insects specimens at a summer camp to help
protect local biodiversity organized by the Zhejiang Environmental
Protection Association and local government. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILYSome of the students from Mon-
golia who are on a seven-day
trip to Shanghai.
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILYThe world’s a stage
Audiences in for a treat as young talented directors display their creativity
during a college theater art festival being held in the capital, Chen Nan reports.
Above: Students from Tsinghua University perform The Moon
Lady, directed by Luo Qixue, an English language literature major.
Top: “Clown characters” star in Fugui Shouyan, directed by Du
Yuan of the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts.