Previous winners Wu Husheng and Ji Pingping. [Photo/shanghaiibc.cn]

To promote the exchange and development of ballet in China, the Shanghai Municipal Government will reconvene the Shanghai International Ballet Competition this year.

The fifth Shanghai International Ballet Competition will be held at the Shanghai Grand Theatre from August 3-11, as announced at a press conference by its organizing committee.

To date, nearly one hundred ballet dancers from 16 countries signed up for the competition and 42 per cent of them are minors. Among 78 quarter-finalists, there are 41 foreigners, the largest number of foreign competitors in any ballet competition in China.

According to Xin Lili, head of the Shanghai Ballet and one of the judges, competitors are divided into two groups. The minor group is for 15 to 18-year-olds and the adult one is for 19 to 26-year-olds. Both solo and duo dancers may take part. For duo dance, the competitors can partner with a non-competitor. The scoring and ranking will be gender-specific. In the quarter-final, semi-final and final, solo dancers will give two classical variations and one modern dance, while duo dancers will perform one classical dance and one modern dance.

There are eight judges, including from China, Germany, Austria, France and South Korea. One of them is dancer director of the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Zhao Ruheng.

The organizers are the Shanghai International Dance Center Development Foundation, Shanghai Dancers' Association and Shanghai Grand Theatre Arts Center. The first competition, in 1995, was co-organized by the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture, Dragon TV and the Ministry of Culture’s Bureau for External Cultural Relations. The competition has been suspended since 2007.