STAGE

 

French fantasy: In this French musical fantasy, a space shuttle accidentally lands on a strange star, causing strange things to happen between the animals on earth and extra-terrestrials.

 

Time: 7:30 pm, August 2-4 

 

Place: Poly Theater, 14 Dongzhimen Nandajie, Dongcheng District

 

Tel: 6500-1188

 

Clown carnival: More than 20 clowns from over 10 European and Central Asian countries will perform, including Dutch whistling vaudeville, Ukrainian puppeteers and Polish acrobats.

 

Time: 7:30 pm, August 3, 4

 

Place: Haidian Theater, 28 Zhongguancun Dajie, Haidian

 

Tel: 6254-6839

 

Opera up-close: The chamber-edition Kunqu Opera of The Peony Pavilion (Mudan Ting) by renowned theater director Lin Zhaohua is being staged every Friday and Saturday at the Imperial Granary of Beijing. Kunqu Opera, China's most ancient form of drama, was listed as a "masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity" by UNESCO in 2001.

 

The Imperial Granary seats just 60 people, so the audience will sit close enough to see every subtle expression of the actors, while no microphone will be needed for spectators to soak in the acoustic details of vocals and instruments, just like during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

 

Time: 7:30 pm, every Friday and Saturday

 

Place: The Imperial Granary, 22 Dongsi Shitiao

 

Tel: 6409-6477, 136-0125-9568 (in English), 138-0138-6998 (in Japanese)

 

Legend of kungfu: This show tells the story of a young monk's journey from childhood to kungfu master. Overcoming many temptations, he finally reaches his sacred goal of enlightenment through hard work. This features exquisite kungfu performances, breathtaking acrobatics and delicate costumes.

 

Time: 7:30 pm, daily

 

Place: Red Theater, 44 Xingfu Dajie, Workers' Cultural Palace of Chongwen District

 

Lords of the rings: The Chinese Acrobatics Group, established in 1950, will put on a performance that includes traditional acrobatics, circus, magic, old Beijing folk plays and more. The show blends music, dance, local opera and martial arts with acrobatics.

 

Time: 7:30 pm, daily

 

Place: Tiandi Theater, Dongsi Shitiao, 100 meters north of Poly Theater, Chaoyang District

 

Tel: 6416-9893

 

CONCERTS 

 

Tribute to master: A concert will commemorate the late Chinese conductor Xu Xin. Zhang Yi, chief director of the Orchestra of National Ballet of China, and Li Xincao, conductor of China National Symphony Orchestra, both Xu's students, will conduct the Orchestra of the National Ballet of China.

 

Li will conduct the orchestra in a performance of Barber's Adagio For Strings and Zhang will conduct Beethoven's The Fifth Piano Concerto and The Seventh Symphony.

 

Born in Changzhou of East China's Jiangsu Province in 1930, Xu learned music at the age of 19 and went to study conducting at the Central Conservatory of Music in 1953. Upon graduation, he stayed with the faculty of the conservatory for 14 years and later served chief conductors at many orchestras in China.

 

Time: 7:30 pm, August 2

 

Place: Beijing Concert Hall, Liubukou, West Chang'an Avenue

 

Tel: 6551-6978/9

 

Fusion jazz: A fusion jazz concert will be held, featuring local band Tuanjiehu Groove. The Submerge Into Your Soul concert promises a wide range of jazz mixed up with pop, rock, funk, R&B and world music. Five members from different countries make up the band - guitar player Long Long, Swede Tobias Demker the bassist, Japanese Arai Soichiro the percussionist, Filipino Dominic Bautista on drums, and Chinese Sedar Chin and Huang Yi on keyboards.

 

Time: 7:30 pm, July 28

 

Place: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhua Jie, Liubukou

 

Tel: 6605-7006

 

Epic set: Post-rock British indie group Yndi Halda will play Beijing as part of an East Asian tour also taking in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan.

 

Yndi Halda is known for the marathon length of its songs. Listeners can expect tracks of around 15 minutes featuring an eclectic instrumental mix. Everything from the glockenspiel to double bass, violin and banjo.

 

Time: 8:30 pm, August 3

 

Place: Star Live, Hepingli Xijie

 

Tel: 6425-5677

 

A hairy situation: The dream of most Chinese metal fans finally came true. Testament, legendary US thrash heroes, which emerged in the 1980s, will be in Beijing to drop an American-style thrash metal storm.

 

Formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1983, the band's passion for heavy metal never faded, making it one of the globe's most influential thrash metal bands.

 

Time: 8 pm, July 29

 

Place: Star Live, Hepingli Xijie

 

Tel: 6553-7753

 

EXHIBITIONS

 

Both sides: Left Right Art Gallery is displaying the works of three artists. Wang Jie's Sound reproduces The Diamond Sutra, one of the Buddhist classics, by means of lithographic imprints, long paper scroll and video. Guangzhou-based artist Tian Liusha brings his painting, Big Consumption, which examines people's aesthetic values in a time when everything seems to be affordable. Finally, Xiao Hu's installation Two Dragons Playing with A Pearl warns of the possible consequences of the widening gap between rich and poor.

 

Time: Daily until August 21

 

Place: Left Right Art Zone, Fuhao Village, Songzhuang Town, Tongzhou District

 

Tel: 8955-2412, 130-0103-6557

 

Oil painting: M Gallery is displaying Chen Ke's oil paintings. Chen, who graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Art in 1997, is well known for portraying meat with his brush.

 

He is exhibiting 18 pieces of his new works under three themes of Foolish Man Moves the Mountain, Sand Table and The Years. Rather than just manipulating the painting brush, these paintings on show convey Chen's ideas about reality.

 

Time: 11 am-6 pm, until August 28

 

Place: M Gallery, Art Studio Zone, Beihuqu Brewery, Beiyuan, Chaoyang District

 

Tel: 5202-3966

 

Ink solo: Dai Xibin, a professor with the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, is holding a solo exhibition of ink paintings at the Art Gallery of the China National Academy of Painting.

 

On show are at least 100 of his latest ink works including his poetic depictions of urban landscape in Milan, Paris, Madrid, and Florence. Also on display are his small-scale paintings of landscape done on Chinese-style fans.

 

Time: 9 am-5 pm, until July 29 

 

Place: 54 Xisanhuan Beilu Road, Haidian District

 

Tel: 6841-1369, 6841-6559

 

Good grief: Tones of solitude, loneliness, ignorance and self-ridicule are expressed in an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art. The show displays 50 works by 18 artists, including Fang Lijun, Zhang Xiaogang and Yu Hong. The common features of the exhibits are the dull tones black, white and gray.

 

Black and white works on canvas among Chinese artists started from the mid 1980s, when rational thought sprung up in contemporary art circles. Instead of the colorful world they face, the artists convey their feelings with cool and sober touches.

 

Time: 9 am-4 pm, until August 5

 

Place: Today Art Museum, 32 Baiziwan Lu, Chaoyang District

 

Tel: 5876-9690

 

Eye of the tiger: Liu Ding's solo exhibition, Tiger, is inspired by a Jorge Louis Borges short story. Symbolizing energy, power and mysticism, the tiger is also a metaphor for how a society obtains its energy and dynamism.

 

Time: 12 am-6 pm, until July 28

 

Place: UniversalStudios-Beijing, A8, Caochangdi Village, Airport Sideway, Chaoyang District

 

Tel: 6432-2600

 

Vacant stare: Liu Chuan's solo exhibition, Boom, examines sensitive issues of the modern world. Inside an airplane, people are packed like sardines, showing indifference with absent expression on their faces or with no face at all.

 

Time: 11 am-7 pm, until July 29

 

Place: Beijing Art Now Gallery, opposite the 12th stand of the Workers' Stadium, Chaoyang District

 

Tel: 6551-1632

 

Mementos: Nearly 20 Chinese contemporary artists, including Shen Jingdong, Zhou Jun and Yu Haibo, explore their memories with their brushes to show unforgettable moments and events. Held at the same time is Spanish artist Nacho Murillo's solo show themed on cups and philosophical ideas behind them.

 

Time: 10 am-4 pm, until July 29

 

Place: NY Arts Beijing Space, 318 Art Garden, Hegezhuang, Chaoyang District

 

Tel: 8457-3298

 

Sculpting in time: Ma Ye's works mainly focus on ordinary people. Trying to combine the natural environment and humane element in one frame, he shows a beauty surpassing time and space. His latest series, Undressing, layers leisure, fashion and entertainment against a background of history and culture.

 

Time: 9 am till midnight, until July 30

 

Place: Artist Village Gallery, 1 North of Rencun, Songzhuang, Tongzhou District

 

Tel: 6959-8343

 

Spectacular lacquer: Yin Xiuyun's lacquer art conveys the charm of age-old intangible cultural relics. In the forms of screens, cabinets, plates, vases and ivory, Yin reproduces the art from Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).

 

Born in 1947, Yin based her creations on traditional lacquer techniques. Employing the ivory carving method, she achieves a three-dimensional effect.

 

Time: 11 am-6 pm, until July 30

 

Place: Qiqiannian Art Center, 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang District

 

Tel: 8989-6605

 

From Titian to Goya: A treasure trove of 52 extraordinary specimens of the most distinguished works of Western art created between the 16th and 19th centuries is under way at the National Art Museum of China. The prestigious Prado National Museum (Museo Nacional del Prado) in Madrid presents these works to mark the celebration of the Year of Spain in China.

 

The display showcases celebrity effigies, religious and historical subjects, mythological anecdotes, secular allegories, still-life works and landscapes.

 

The exhibition will later move to the Shanghai Museum, running there from September 13 to November 12.

 

Time: 9 am-5 pm, until August 24

 

Place: 1 Wusi Dajie 

 

Tel: 8403-3500

 

Builder of Barcelona: One of the greatest architects of Spain in the 20th century, Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) turned Barcelona into a stage to showcase his talents in designing. He left the city 18 architectural masterpieces, three of which are inscribed on the World Heritage list by the UNESCO. Chinese audiences will be able to get acquainted with some of his works at Cosmos Gaudi - Architecture, Geometry and Design now under way at the Capital Museum as a program of the Year of Spain in China.

 

The exhibition encompasses 20 original pieces, 17 reproductions and 13 models, and presents the magnificence of Gaudinian architecture that perfectly combine different forms, colors and materials.

 

Time: 9 am-5 pm, daily except Monday, until August 2

 

Place: 16 Fuxingmenwai Dajie

 

Tel: 6337-0491/2

 

From country to city: The Sichuan School is an influential force in the Chinese contemporary art scene. A retrospective exhibition titled 1976-2006, From Rural Modernity to Urban Utopia is showing the ecological changes and achievements of Sichuan contemporary artist over the past three decades. On display are works by more than 70 representatives of the Sichuan School, including big names such as Luo Zhongli, He Duoling, Zhang Xiaogang and Zhou Chunya.

 

The display looks into the school's different historical phases, starting from the period between the end of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and the opening-up in the 1980s.

 

Time: 9 am-5 pm, until July 30

 

Place: Boyi Gallery, 83 Beiheyan Dajie

 

Tel: 6406-0173

 

Cross-cultural canvasses: An ongoing exhibition of Chinese and Belgian paintings is being held, comparing techniques of the two countries across five centuries (1450-1950).

 

One exhibition in the Meridian Gate features 76 Western paintings of various genres from 11 museums and private collections exemplary of the sophistication of Baroque art, while the Hall of Martial Valor houses 98 Chinese paintings from the Palace Museum that were created by artists from more than 10 painting schools throughout these five centuries.

 

Time: 8:30 am-5 pm, until September 5

 

Place: Meridian Gate (Wu Men) and Hall of Martial Valor (Wuying Dian), Palace Museum, 4 Jingshan Qianjie, Dongcheng District

 

Tel: 8511-7575

 

(China Daily July 28, 2007)