Closer to the opening of the 2018 Australian-Asian Art Festival (OzAsia Festival 2018), as one of the biggest art festivals of the year, the Australian-Asian Art Festival is bound to be expected. It is reported that the festival will have 439 activities, including more than 250 scheduled performances, 55 forums, 34 viewing events, 8 exhibitions and 66 seminars, which is expected to be attended by two hundred thousand people within 18 days of the event. Joseph Michel (Joseph Mitchell), art director of the Australian-Asian Festival, is also looking forward to the "outstanding performance" of various programs at the Australian-Asian Festival.
Director of the Australian-Asian Festival: Joseph Michel:
Joseph has been art director of the Australian-Asian Festival since 2014. He has previously served as a senior director at (Luminato Festival), the Toronto Festival of Light and Shadow, and an executive producer at the (Brisbane International Arts Festival in Australia) International Festival in Brisbane, Australia. He visited Doha, China, New York, New Zealand and Lake Nicaragua, Canada, and experienced change on Joseph's understanding of art.
When it comes to this year's Australian-Asian festival, Joseph is sometimes impassioned, sometimes serious, but always passionate and enthusiastic. He said that the Australian-Asian festival is dedicated to presenting to the Australian audience the magnificent works of art, no matter what language you speak, no matter what background you have, you can immerse in it and enjoy the art feast.
Australian and Asian Art Festival "four" Chinese Drama:
1. The important part of the play "Love the Source of Peach Flowers"
In this Australian-Asian art festival, the most attention is undoubtedly the well-known stage director Lai Shengchuan (Stan Lai) brought us "secret love peach blossom source." The play is highly praised for its characteristics of "laugh in tears, tears in laughter" and "mixed with sorrow and joy", and is regarded as one of the classical works of Chinese drama in the past century.
In Joseph's view, the secret love of peach blossoms tells a very interesting story, sadness and joy mutually exclusive, but the fusion of each other, unique. He said: this stage play is performed in Putonghua with English subtitles. Although I do not know Chinese, I can still find out through the subtitles the interest of "the Source of Peach Flowers". I believe the audience can speak both Chinese and English. Can all enjoy it. It took us a long time to choose this work, to take it out of China, to Australia, I am sure the Australian audience will like it.
Director Lai Sheng-chuan and I have known each other for many years and have always wanted to take Peach Flower Source to Australia. It is suitable for all spectators. Now the tickets are in short supply, and I will go to watch it myself. Joseph also revealed that in the future after the Nov. 9 debut, Lai Shengchuan will communicate with the audience through a question-and-answer session. And before the show performance, Lai Shengchuan may also be present in advance to interact with the audience.
2. Dragon take off! Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern Parade
This year's Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern Fair (Moon Lantern Parade) will also be of unprecedented magnitude and will also be more popular than last year. Joseph revealed that there will be a 40-meter-long Hong Kong dragon and two giant pandas in this year's event. There will also be white tigers and exotic beasts from China, even dragon boats in Hong Kong.
This is a huge project, there will be dozens of performances, rich in variety. It is accompanied by food peddlers and other entertainment and infrastructure.
3. Dimensional collision
This is the message you want. Don't let anyone see; -) > (Here is the message you asked for. (don't tell anyone else;-) is a stage play directed by Sun Xiaoxing, director and writer. It turns the stage into a "surreal space", makes the real reality and the virtual reality combine with each other, and makes the quadratic world and the cubic world collide with each other.
Joseph said the play is also very unique, no narrative process, girls on the stage to interpret their dormitory life, some play games, some online chat, some food and drink, some dressed in clothes. Viewers can use social software such as social app to interact with performers on stage, and they will respond, and if you send them pictures, they will also reply to some of them. There were no pre-arranged plots, no subtitles, and all performances were impromptu.
I believe this unique form of performance will attract many Chinese students and foreign students from China. The content of the show will resonate with them. It will be easier for the audience to understand and attract more young people.
4. "martial arts" and "dance skills"
(SUTRA) is a dance performed by Chinese Shaolin Monastery monk and Belgian dancer West Robbie Chikowei (Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui).
Joseph said the Shaolin Temple in China consists of two parts, Buddhism and Wushu, which show Shaolin's martial arts. In order to show the audience perfectly, the West has even lived in Shaolin Temple for six months.
The stage is filled with wooden boxes, which change shapes as the program progresses, sometimes a wall, sometimes a bridge, sometimes a temple, and performers perform on changing stages. Let Chinese Shaolin and Western dance blend and interweave on the stage.
The Chinese Orchestra "clanging" came to attack.
The hormone Miss (The Hormones) is another Chinese element of the show. Joseph said that this is an all-women's band from Chengdu, China, they can always be seen at all kinds of Chinese music festivals, almost all the songs are Chinese songs, maybe there are one or two English songs.
Rackett from Sydney, Australia, and The Villenettes from Adelaide. "I saw them perform in Beijing a few years ago. It was wonderful!" Another program is the "DJ Cheer" free percussion (Freedom Beat), which combines Chinese traditional music, contemporary percussion music and record jockey (DJ) to create a new music model.
In addition, there are rap groups from Shanxi, China, as well as Chinese Australian female musicians at the Australian-Asian Festival.
"wonderful" is more than that.
There are also many events at the festival that involve viewers, and the visual art brought by Korean artist Jee-young Lee allows viewers to play. The audience can walk into the surrealist photography, surrounded by dozens of photographers to take pictures of them as a souvenir.
In addition, according to Joseph, the Australian-Asian Art Festival also has film programs, and the festival has brought great splendor to Australian audiences, including films from China, Thailand and other Asian countries. There are seven films in China. Six of them came from China's mainland and the other from China's TW.
The Jaipur Festival (Jaipur Literature Festival), which will be held from November 9 to 11, is free of charge and will showcase art, literature and culinary traditions in South Asia. Exhibits include books, ideas, food, and music. He said the festival will be dominated by Indian culture, looking to world culture from a Southeast Asian perspective.
The opening ceremony of the 2018 Australian and Asian Arts Festival was also held successfully on the evening of August 14. A list of programs, as well as schedules and fares for each programme, have also been announced and can be purchased at https://www.ozasiafestival.com.au/, the official website of the 2018 Australian-Asian Arts Festival.
"Australia is a multi-cultural country, culture continues to spread, growth, development. The purpose of the Australian-Asian festival is to make people understand differences and cultures, to make Australians more aware of Chinese culture, and to show Asian immigrants the culture of their hometowns. The Australian-Asian festival is not for a single country or region, but for the general public and for every cultural group. I hope the Australian-Asian Festival will attract some young audiences, most of whom have only performed in China and have never performed in Australia, and they should come and see it. "
-Joseph Michel