6th Songzhuang Culture and Arts Festival to open

Hu Jiebao, the secretary of the Party Committee of Songzhuang, spoke during the conference. Chen Xiaofeng, Ya Ri, Wang Zhongwen, Zhang Qikai, and Gu Wentong attended the event. Beijing Television Station host Chaodong and curator of this year's festival Yue Luping hosted the activities. [CRI]

The 6th Culture and Arts Festival of Songzhuang will run from September 10 to October 10 with the theme "Crossover," organizers announced at a press conference held in Beijing on Thursday, July 22.

This year's festival aims to cross lines -- lines between globe and region, culture and industry, creativity and daily life, government and society, and various other categories of culture and creativity.

Following last year's theme - "Community! Community!" -- the festival is continuing to connect different art communities, and has also expanded its geographic boundaries to include Chongqing, Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan. So far, the number of art communities has been increased to 11.

Institutions from 11 countries have participated in the festival, countries including Spain, Germany, Canada, Russia, Italy, France, Japan, Korea, India, Thailand and Georgia. The festival committee expects these institutions to bring more global elements into the festival.

Meanwhile, eight fine arts colleges are also participating to inject creative energy into the festival and strengthen the fundamental education.

In addition, the festival will continue focusing on the topics of music, drama, film, poem and lectures. The highlight this year is to make more efforts on the crossover of different topics and to encourage the creativity over fields.

Furthermore, this year's festival emphasizes creativity in communication. In order to be the youngest and the most passionate representative of soft power, the festival committee proposes to establish the Central Arts District in the capital and to redefine Songzhuang into a "Ready Village" in people's mind, like SoHo of New York and the East End of London.

Hu Jiebao, the secretary of the Party Committee of Songzhuang, spoke during the conference. Chen Xiaofeng, Ya Ri, Wang Zhongwen, Zhang Qikai, and Gu Wentong, who are in charge of different institutions and topics, attended the event. Beijing Television Station host Chaodong and curator of this year's festival Yue Luping hosted the activities.