Young talent set to shine as creativity celebrated

From hyper-media concerts that combine live music with digital visual-audio experiences to theater productions that highlight physical performance, dance and Chinese folk opera, a new series of live productions under the Rising Artists Works program will be presented starting from Friday.

This year, the program received 313 applications from countries including Britain, Germany, Austria, Russia and Malaysia. The program also launched a new visual arts section that supports both artists and curators, and features paintings, installations, video and multimedia productions.

After a strict review and screening, eight performing art pieces and two visual art projects have been selected as the winners of this year's program, according to Li Ming, president of the center for the China Shanghai International Arts Festival. They will premiere at the Huashan Road campus of the Shanghai Theatre Academy during the Young Talents' Week.

An exhibition showcasing the achievements of the program over the past 10 years is now taking place at the academy's Duanjun Theatre. Visitors can browse all 500 projects that have been part of the program thanks to new data retrieval technology.

Leading artists from home and abroad, including chairman of the council for the RAW program Tan Dun, director of Cultural and Diplomacy at the Asia Society of America Rachel Cooper, and renowned Kunqu artist Zhang Jun, will hold lectures and dialogues at the special forum for the talent program, during which they will share insights about the opportunities and challenges faced by young creative talent today, and explore new possibilities for providing them sustainable support.

An integrated part of the China Shanghai International Arts Festival which will run until Nov 15, the talent program was launched in 2012 with the aim of nurturing young creators, facilitating collaboration and communications, as well as fostering new international exchanges.

Since 2013, the festival has been working alongside the Shanghai Theatre Academy to host the Young Talents' Week every year, during which the productions sponsored by the RAW program are performed.

Over the past decade, the festival has commissioned 92 artists from different fields to create 78 productions through the young talent program. Some of the shows have been performed abroad in countries like the United States, Britain, Hungary, Romania and Norway.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Young Artistic Talents' Week, and a concert, Bi-An 5.0, has been specially commissioned to celebrate the occasion. Bi-An is a music studio founded by pianist Yu Xiangjun, visual artist Da Yan, and a group of other composers and audio engineers. The studio has been responsible for four successful concert productions that combined piano music with visual media and hyper-sensory experiences.

Two members of the studio, Qin Yi and Xu Zhibo, were winners of the talent program.