ChinaDaily[971104-8]

[Chinese News]

China Daily

97 / 11 / 04 /

***************************************************************************
1. Beijing bops to sound of international jazz artists
2. Solo concert spot for neglected ruan
3. TV series highlights successful project
4. Students sculpt sounds of silence
5. What's on (Page: 10, Date: 11/04/97)
6. [INLINE]
***************************************************************************

Beijing bops to sound of international jazz artists
Five years after it was first held, the China International Jazz
Festival has gained wide attention and recognition among Chinese
and foreign jazz artists and jazz lovers.
Held every autumn since 1992 in Beijing, the festival has
attracted many jazz performers from a number of European countries
and the United States, where jazz has enjoyed both tradition and
popularity. The festival has also provided a rare opportunity for
Chinese jazz musicians to share their musical thoughts and
experiences with their Western counterparts.
Chinese jazz music, which is rooted in the centuries-old tradition
and great variety of Chinese folklore and popular and theatrical
music, has already started to establish itself on the world jazz
music scene.
But how closely is Western jazz related to Chinese music? How much
do foreign and Chinese jazz musicians draw inspiration from each
other?
The answers to these questions may be found in the upcoming '97
China International Jazz Festival to be held this month in
Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Dalian.
This year's festival will attract around 80 jazz musicians from 13
countries. Performers will play in different cities before
audiences expected to be in the region of 25,000 to 30,000. The
festival will kick off in Beijing on November 18 at the
International Poly Plaza Theatre and run to November 23. Some
musicians will perform between November 21 and 23 in Shanghai,
Hangzhou and Dalian.
The festival will feature some of the best-known jazz musicians
from Europe, the United States and Japan, showcasing a variety of
jazz styles ranging from traditional to experimental and avant
garde.
Apart from festival performances, jazz musicians will give
lectures, master classes and workshops, focusing on the topic of
"East Meets West."
Among the guest musicians, Betty Carter from the United States is
expected to take much of the limelight: a gifted performer with a
voice like black velvet, Carter is regarded as a legendary
superstar.
She made her debut in 1946 with the bands of Dizzy Gillespie and
Charlie Parker, followed by touring performances and recording
engagements. Since 1969, she has worked exclusively with her own
hand-picked trios, nurturing a whole generation of some of today's
leading jazz musicians. Now approaching 70, her trio still plays
to packed audiences. Betty Carter and Trio will perform on the
final day of the festival in Beijing.
Nils Landgren Funk Unit from Sweden, Antonio Martinez Candela from
Spain, Keiko Lee from Japan, John Taylor from Britain and many
more will present their top repertoires in a diversity of styles.
Formed by Asian Americans, the Jon Jang Sextet and the Far East
Side Band are a combination of East and West.
Four Chinese bands will also be performing at the festival. The
Golden Angle Jazz Band, made up of musicians from the Military
Orchestra of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), will be the
opening act for the festival, showing the similarities between
military marches and jazz. This will be the band's first public
performance.
Wide Angle Jazz Group, set up in 1994, is one of the most
acclaimed jazz groups in Beijing and contains both Chinese and
Western musicians. Originally specializing in traditional jazz
standards, it has now incorporated the newer currents of fusion,
funk and avant garde in its own compositions.
Rhythm Dogs Big Band was set up by singer and harmonica-player
John Anderson in Beijing in 1996. The band is made up of both
Chinese and Western jazz musicians, performing its own
improvisational versions of blues from the last half of the
century. It has also spiced up its repertoire with funk and
contemporary jazz arrangements.
Liu Yuan needs no introduction to Chinese jazz audiences. One of
the pioneers of jazz in China, he is the only artist to have been
featured in the festival for all five years. An exceptionally
gifted musician, Liu was trained on various traditional Chinese
wind instruments and played in different orchestras before turning
his attention to jazz. He is a frequent player in Beijing.
The festival is organized by Beijing Yi Ren Culture & Arts
Exchange Centre under the joint sponsorship of Visa, Pacific Time
Wines & Spirits Ltd, Delphi Automotive System and many others.
_____________________________________________________________

_Date: 11/04/97_
_Author: Mao Jingbo_
_Copyright© by China Daily_

***************************************************************************

Solo concert spot for neglected ruan
PERFORMER Xu Yang says hers is a lonely instrument often ignored
in an orchestra.
She plays the ruan, a traditional, plucked Chinese musical
instrument that looks and sounds very similar to the pipa.
However, because of its limited sound range and lack of
repertoire, the ruan is treated as an ensemble rather than a solo
instrument. Even in the orchestra, the ruan is seldom given any
spotlight during a performance.
No concert has ever been held for ruan soloists, and there are
only a few ruan musicians in the country. Xu will be the first
ruan player to hold a concert, on November 9 at the Beijing
Concert Hall.
Xu started to learn the ruan when she was 10. In 1985, she was
admitted to the Chinese Music Department of the Xi'an Conservatory
of Music where she now teaches. She has won a number of Chinese
musical instrument competitions. Her recent album was released by
the People's Music Publishing House. She also writes her own
compositions for the instrument.
At the concert, Xu will perform solo and ensemble pieces including
"Sleeping Lotus," "Jade Moon," "Drunk by the Flower" and "The
Rhythm of the Mountain." She will be accompanied by the Chinese
Music Ensemble attached to the Central Conservatory of Music under
the baton of Wang Fujian. (CD News)
_____________________________________________________________

_Date: 11/04/97_
_Author: _
_Copyright© by China Daily_

***************************************************************************

TV series highlights successful project
NINE documentaries on the Hope Project are now being broadcast on
Channel 7 of China Central Television (CCTV).
The Hope Project, which started in 1989, is a nationwide
fund-raising campaign to give financial support to children in
poverty-stricken areas to allow them to return to school after
previously quitting due to lack of money.
In the past eight years, the project, administered by the China
Youth Development Foundation, has collected 1.2 billion yuan ($145
million) from the public. The money has been used to help 1.5
million students continue their studies and to build 4,000 Hope
Schools in the countryside.
The Hope Project has become focus of attention. The documentaries
depict many heart-rending stories that have come to light during
the campaign. For instance, "A World Filled With Love" describes
how overseas Chinese try every possible way to make donations to
the foundation. "The Hope of Hope" introduces the first training
centre for teachers from Hope schools. Children who are able to go
on with their schooling are also depicted in some of the episodes.
The documentaries are sponsored by the Fu Sheng Garment Industry
Co Ltd, one the leading clothes manufacturers in China. The
company has donated 2.25 million yuan ($273,000) to the Hope
Project since 1994.
According to Xu Yongguang, vice-chairman of the China Youth
Development Foundation, the Hope Project will finish its
historical task by the end of the century, as the Chinese
Government has promised to implement compulsory education and
eliminate illiteracy by then.
(CD News)
_____________________________________________________________

_Date: 11/04/97_
_Author: _
_Copyright© by China Daily_

***************************************************************************

Students sculpt sounds of silence
MY first encounter with the young deaf-and-dumb sculptors of
Shandong Vocational Secondary School for the Disabled in Ji'nan
was in May this year, when they exhibited their works at the China
National Art Museum in Beijing.
As I had read positive appraisals of the exhibition in the
capital's papers, I decided to visit it with my friend Zhang Hong,
an oil painter from the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
The symbolic world of these youngsters, immersed in silence,
opened in front of our eyes: on simple wooden boards, a series of
faces with half-open mouths express the tragic impossibility of
talking.
On a large wooden board, a shoal of fish moves freely, silently,
in its natural environment.
On a trunk more than 2 metres high, on a base of knives and old
Chinese money, the young Qi Min has carved human figures with
Buddhist prayer rosaries, symbol of the attempt to transcend a
materialistic civilization.
Almost all of these young artists, born in peasant families, are
from Shandong, a province rich in corn. The cereal exerts a
magnetic attraction on them. Li Weidong, for example, places large
ears of corn beside human figures, almost as a part of them,
expressing the vital importance of the cereal for the local
population.
My second meeting with the young deaf-and-dumb artists was in the
Forbidden City, which they visited along with a group of disabled
persons from Denmark. The two groups were communicating with
gestures and all the vitality of youth. Those from Denmark, with
muscular distrophy, were sitting in wheel-chairs, and it took
great effort to ferry them up and down so many stairs and over the
high doorsteps, so as to allow them to enter the palace halls.
Their helpers did their best, pushing the wheelchairs or placi
ng metallic rails on the staircases.
During the visit we met an American teacher of the deaf-and-dumb:
the two sides could communicate perfectly, even if there are some
differences in their hand signs. For example, in the United
States, to say "deaf-and-dumb," one places the right hand over the
left and pushes down, while in China, this idea is communicated by
pulling down the right earlobe.
As I have no knowledge of this language, my interpreter was the
young teacher, Zhou Ning, who had been teaching for three years in
Shandong.
A graduate painter from the Shandong School of Art, the
20-year-old Zhou Ning has used all his artistic and human
sensitivity to develop a sense of creativity in his pupils,
receiving in exchange unlimited appreciation and love. Even Zhou
Ning's wife Xiao Yixia helps with the sculpture class.
What does working in a deaf-and-dumb class mean? The language of
silence is sometimes more productive than the spoken word, says
Zhou Ning.
The hearts of these youngsters are pure: They don't feel any
aggression in situations normal people would view with anxiety,
perhaps because of a certain fatalism. Then the sign language
allows them to establish a complete relationship with the world,
in the area of friendship as in that of work.
The young artists have been studying art for three years: basic
drawing, painting and finally the wood carving in which they have
obtained such brilliant success.
During a recent visit to Shandong Vocational Secondary School for
the Disabled, I had the chance to see with my own eyes the
conditions in which the young artists live and work.
A workshop has been set up in an unheated room once used for film
projections. Winter is coming. It will become necessary to
lengthen the waterpipes so that the youngsters can continue work.
The workshop connects with the dormitory, filled with bunk beds
and a simple wardrobe. Tables and chairs have all been handmade by
the workers. Even the knives they use for carving have been made
from used materials: iron bars or other metals, electrically
ground and given suitable shapes.
The sculptures are made from applewood and other woods of fruit
trees. Wood sculpture requires strength, and so some girls are at
a disadvantage. Among the current carvers, there is only one girl.
The work is hard, but the young artists, heartened by their
success and the encouragement they receive, work late into the
night, and are back to work early the next morning. Their art has
become more diversified and rich in new details.
Talking with Zhou Ning in the room he occupies in the school
building, I discovered that he and the students practise a kind of
meditation called "wheel of law," with obvious Buddhist elements,
from which they draw inspiration for their lives and art.
China has a long Buddhist tradition, and the insertion of a
transcendental element into this artistic context seems a fitting
return to those origins and meshes magnificently with the joyful
and generous environment of the school.
After having attended the Beijing International Art Exhibition,
Zhou Ning and his students attended an exhibition in Dalian at the
end of September.
In mid-November, they will hold their show in Shanghai, and then
they will go to Guangzhou at the beginning of December. An intense
schedule, indeed.
But the workshop needs to be publicized and to find the financial
support that will allow the young workers to survive and continue
developing their art.
The special Ji'nan School for the Disabled was established in 1994
and offers one of the most complete experiences for disabled
persons in all China. In the suburbs, on a hillside and hidden
among the trees, the school has modern classroom buildings, a
dormitory and a dining hall.
In addition to sculpture and other kinds of applied arts, the
students can learn the techniques of making cartoons, drawing and
fashion design.
The school is supported by the Shandong provincial government.
About 200 students live on campus with their teachers, who can
follow their progress all the time.
Now, teachers and students would like to establish contact with
other schools or centres for disabled people around the world to
exchange teaching experiences.
The Ji'nan School could host foreign students who would like to
learn Chinese massage, for example. Contacts have already been
established to send the exhibition of the Chinese deaf-and-dumb
artists to Denmark, while Danish artists could hold a return show
in China.
Such initiatives must be encouraged. Ten of millions of Chinese
are disabled and the Chinese economy, still developing, can hardly
provide study and work opportunities for them all.
The financial problem is not a small one.
In a recent attempt to realize a complete
teaching-production-administration system, the school has built a
centre for the production of cartoons, a clothing factory and one
making precision instruments. The income, 800,000 ($96,800) in
three years, has served to alleviate the strains on the school
budget and to ameliorate the living and teaching conditions of the
teachers and the students.
Meanwhile, the questions are how to assure a future for the young
sculptors, and how to further develop such a valuable experience?
This is how the idea arose of a sculpture workshop called,
significantly, "True Language." This class has absorbed nine of
the 28 students.
The others, unfortunately, have had to return home to wait for
other opportunities, because the present structure has
limitations.
Zhou Ning has been contacting local enterprises, trying to
convince them that a deaf-and-dumb worker may benefit them, and
not just be a hindrance.
_____________________________________________________________

_Date: 11/04/97_
_Author: Gabriella Bonino_
_Copyright© by China Daily_

***************************************************************************

What's on (Page: 10, Date: 11/04/97)
Exhibitions
One-woman art show -- Shi Yuling is displaying her oil paintings
at the Melodic Art Gallery.
Time: 9am-5pm, November 5-25.
Place: 14, Jianguomenwai Dajie, Chaoyang District, Beijing.
Tel: 6515-8123.
Beijing Artists' Works -- The Art Gallery of the China Central
Academy of Fine Arts is holding a painting exhibition.
More than 200 pieces of works including, prints, gouaches,
watercolour, oil and traditional Chinese paintings.
The exhibition is annually sponsored by the Beijing Artists
Association.
Time: 9:30am-4:30pm, November 4-10.
Place: Art Gallery of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts,
Shuaifuyuan, Wangfujing Dajie, Dongcheng District, Beijing.
Tel: 6527-7991.
Joint Art Show -- A joint oil paintings exhibition opens today at
China National Art Museum.
Hong Yi, Lei Bo and Qin Xiujie come from Sichuan, Guangxi and
Jilin provinces. They are studying under a short-term training
programme at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts.
The works reflect their views on current urban life.
Time: 9am-4pm, through November 9.
Place: China National Art Museum, 1 Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng
District, Beijing.
Tel: 6401-2252.
Dramas
Sartre's tragedy -- The Central Experimental Modern Drama Theatre
will perform "No Exit," by Jean-Paul Sartre in Chinese.
With a bold and peculiar concept, "No Exit" raises such
philosophical questions as the value of human life, human dignity
and the significance of death.
Time: 7:15 pm, until November 30 except Monday.
Place: The Central Experimental Drama Theatre, A45 Mao'er Hutong,
Dongcheng District
Tel: 6403-1099, 6403-1109
Play on Beijingers -- The China Youth Art Theatre will put on a
play called "A Family in Beijing."
The play is set in Beijing in the late 1990s. In the commercial
whirlwind, great changes have also taken place in the family of Di
Jiuru, a former royal architect who yearns for the brilliant
culture of old Beijing. Di is sorry to see his son and daughter
busy with business every day. Different concepts of value cause a
clash within the family at last.
Time: 7:15 pm, November 5-16.
Place: Grand Theatre of the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, 49
Fuwai Dajie, Xicheng District
Tel: 6602-2770, 6602-2530.
_____________________________________________________________

_Date: 11/04/97_
_Author: _
_Copyright© by China Daily_

***************************************************************************

[INLINE]
[INLINE]

Updated on September 24, 1997

[INLINE]

[INLINE]

_[1]The 15th Party Congress_

_[2]Sep. 12 - Sep.18, 1997_

[INLINE]

[3][LINK] _[4]General Secretary Jiang Zemin's
Report to the 15th Party Congress_
[5][LINK] _[6]New Party Leadership elected,
Top Leaders' Profiles_
[7][LINK] _[8]Communique of 15th CPC Central
Committee's First Plenum_

[INLINE]

Feedback: [9]cd...@chinadaily.net

_Copyright by CBnet ®, China Daily Information_

References

1. http://www.chinadaily.net/cndy/history/15/engtg124.html
2. http://www.chinadaily.net/cndy/history/15/engtg124.html
3. http://www.chinadaily.net/cndy/history/15/report.html
4. http://www.chinadaily.net/cndy/history/15/report.html
5. http://www.chinadaily.net/cndy/history/15/engtgb46.html
6. http://www.chinadaily.net/cndy/history/15/engtgb46.html
7. http://www.chinadaily.net/cndy/history/15/engtgb09.html
8. http://www.chinadaily.net/cndy/history/15/engtgb09.html
9. mailto:cd...@chinadaily.net

***************************************************************************