New life for old arts – Eight Xuanwu artists lead Charming Beijing in Brussels

The history of Beijing as the capital city began in Xuanwu District. During the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234), imperial construction began in the district’s Guang’anmen area. Centuries later, the district is famous for its well-kept tradition of folk arts and craftsmanship. Its current artists give new life to the old arts they inherited.

Art in reality – Beijing 798 Biennale explore a shifting community

The 706 Factory in 798 Art District got a new addition for last Saturday’s Biennial: a low-ceilinged shed for Three Gorges resettlers with thre single beds and an old wooden door.

“During the past 10 years, more attention has been going to the underprivileged and people left living on the fringes of society. This awareness has imbued the contemporary art scenewith a sense of community spirit,” Zhu Qi, curator of the first Beijing 798 Biennial, says.

Three Gorges resettlers, casualties of Wenchuan Earthquake, migrant workers and mental patients were the topics of the night. They embody contemporary art’s focus on shifting communities.

Classical’s future in the East – Lucerne Festival arrives in Beijing

Classical music fans who missed the concert will have another chance to hear it in September at the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA). Many Chinese musicians have become major players on the festival’s stage. Tan Dun, a Chinese composer-conductor who straddles the boundary between East and West, will take up the baton of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Treasures of the past brought to light

Throughout history, many of the greatest pieces have remained long-lost to the public. Some were immediately tucked away by collectors and others buried.

In the upcoming 2nd Chinese Artistic Treasure Exhibition on August 16, some of these unknown curiosities will resurface as part of the new collection of antiques and the finest folk crafts.

Life on the roof of the world – The true Tibet

Tibet is a mysterious and misunderstood land. Few know what happens here. One Chinese director lived in its third largest town for 18 months and produced a five-episode TV documentary last year.

Her piece aired three times on BBC, where it received high praise from the British mainstream media, including The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. The film “objectively records the real life of people who live in the most contentious remote area,” The Guardian wrote.

Since this Monday, it has been broadcast on CCTV and will soon air on Phoenix Satellite Television and other Chinese provincial channels.

Threatened culture survives quake in dance

Dozens of ethnic Qiang poets were buried by the magnitude-8 Wenchuan earthquake at 2:28 pm last May 12 while reciting poems at the Qiang Minority Group Museum in Sichuan Province. Over 30,000 Qiang people –10 percent of the group’s population – perished in the quake.

The six Qiang items in China’s intangible cultural heritage include the ethnic group’s dance and songs. To preserve the minority group’s 3,000-year culture, Qiang arists have created a song-and-dance drama to present their rich and precious culture. The performance debuted on the anniversary of the earthquake in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. It will come to Beijing’s stage early next month.

Documenting ‘hidden’ subjects – photographer Lu Nan and his philosophy

Lu Nan creates documentaries like none other. His work focuses on people who exist outside the mainstream, or who have slipped through its cracks. His subjects are lost and forgotten in a society of materialist elites.

Since he decided to be a documentary photographer some 20 years ago, he has lived like a monk, believing the “good stuff” comes from a simple and restrained life.

Lu went to the most dangerous area in Myanmar in 2006. There he got involved with drug dealers and addicts and documented their daily lives. The photos Lu took in Myanmar appear in his latest exhibition, “Prison Camps in Northern Myanmar,” which opened last Saturday in 798 Art District.

Grandma van Gogh’s canvas

Chang Xiufeng is an illiterate old woman. She spent most of her life in a poor village in Henan Province, the most economically undeveloped area of China, until she moved to Guangzhou to live with Jiang Hua, one of her six children, in 2003.
That year, she picked up her paintbrush to recall the “good old days” on canvas.
Without professional training, Chang ignores perspective and the principles of color harmony followed strictly by most art school painters. Her natural sense of color fuses with her memory of the countryside to capture nostalgia.

Flim on a deadline

Creating a film in under 48 hours sounds impossible, but 11 teams did it as part of the 48 Hour Film Project, the world’s largest timed filmmaking competition.

This year was the first time Beijing was tapped as one of the many cities to host a competition. Participants ran a sleepless weekend from June 19 to 21 to write, shoot, edit and score a film.

Last weekend, their submissions debuted to an audience at the Yan Club Arts Center. The organizer and participants hope to make the project an annual event.

Faces – The brutality of history, the cruelty of reality

The Chinese expeditionary force was formed in 1942 during World War II to guard the country’s southwest backdoor and to help the British repe the Japanese army in Burma. During the following three years, China sent 400,000 soldiers, half of whom were killed in action.

This episode of history has lapsed from most people’s memories, but when a photographer from Yunna Province started to collect photos of the surviving veterans in 2007, their faces became new evidence of the past.