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Silk Road doco maker in a spin
Asian American director Duffy Wang won the best documentary director award at the 36th Northern California Emmy Award on May 12, for Sketching the Silk Road, a co-production of China Intercontinental Communication Center (CICC) and the US-based Rainbow TV.
Armed with only their sketchbooks and their creativity, two up-and-coming American painters trace an ancient trade route to China's most famous Buddhist artwork treasure land, Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, Northwest China's Gansu Province. Artists Rachel Sager and Todd Thompson returned from Dunhuang in August 2005.
Their journey and subsequent exhibition provided the story for Sketching, the third instalment of the documentary series Touch China.
Exposing the power of the written word
The Regional Handwriting Expo was held in Beijing Yanhuang Art Gallery on May 12. The expo assembled 194 regional handwritings and 64 calligraphers from Fujian, Gansu and Shandong provinces.
Zhang Tielin, vice-chairman of the International Calligraphers Association and famous episodes actor, hosted the open ceremony. Also at the expo, academics discussed handwriting's globalization trend and localization.
Long hot summer of dance
Dance fever will reach new heights in the capital this summer thanks to the China Modern Dance Summit.
The major event will be held in July with many shows performed by leading Chinese modern dance companies, including the Cloud Gate Dance Theater from Taiwan.
The summit has been co-organized by China Daily, the China Academy of Arts and the Beijing Gehua Culture Center and will attract top choreographers and dancers from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The central theme is the Development and Future of Modern Dance in China, choreographers, dancers, theorists and critics will review the birth and early stage of modern dance in China, the flourishing time during the 1990s and future directions.
Beijing LDTX Modern Dance will perform its latest production Looking for Da Guan Yuan at the opening ceremony.
In the following two weeks, other companies will perform at The PLA Opera Theater, Oriental Avant-garde Theater.
As part of the grand finale, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre will perform The Legend of the White Snake at Poly Theatre on July 11 and 12 and Water Moon on July 14 and 15.
Return of the half-shell heroes
The animated blockbuster TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) premiered to Chinese audiences on Thursday.
In the movie, the four turtles, named after artists of the Renaissance, do battle with four stone warriors revived by tech-industrialist tycoon Max Winters. Making this new incarnation of the teenage mutant ninja turtles truly cutting-edge, the film features CG animation, giving the half-shell heroes a 21-century look.
The story of TMNT is familiar to Chinese audiences, especially those aged around 30, because a popular cartoon series featuring the fighting turtles was broadcast in China in the 1980s.
In the new film, China's Zhang Ziyi is the voice of Karai, the leader of the warriors.
China Daily
(China Daily 05/22/2007 page18)
