Candoco's high profile and groundbreaking approach to teaching dance has generated interest from schools and the wider community, and led to a proliferation of integrated groups across the UK. Provided to China Daily

They'll be dancing at the Olympics in London in August, but Chinese audiences can catch a preview right now.

The Candoco Dance Company brings disabled and able-bodied dancers together in its performance: we've already seen them in the 2008 Olympics closing ceremony in Beijing, when London was introduced as the next host city.

In April, Candoco will tour China as part of the UK Now festival.

Lisa Zhang, arts manager with the cultural and education section of the British consulate general in Shanghai, says the festival will tour 17 cities from April to November, showing off the same act that will be performed at the London Olympics opening ceremony.

UK Now gathers hundreds of projects in art, theater, film and dance, education exchange and will be the largest ever festival of British culture in China.

Highlights will include Propeller, an all-male theater company presenting plays by William Shakespeare. The company will bring to China in June an "unprecedented presentation" of Henry V and The Winter's Tale, according to Zhang.

Contemporary sculptor Tony Cragg, winner of the Turner Prize awarded by the Tate Gallery in 1988, will have his first solo exhibition in Shanghai. The show is scheduled between September and November in the newly opened Himalaya Museum in Pudong New Area.

Cragg has worked with all conceivable materials in his sculptures, and he won the honor to be exhibited in the glass pyramid of the Louvre in Paris.

A collection of British films including longtime favorites and the latest award-winners, will be shown.

Other events include performances by the English National Ballet and modern dance company Random, concerts from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and selected shows from the acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

An exhibition of Olympic posters will be held at Shanghai's Xintiandi bar area during the London Olympics, and a collection from the Victoria & Albert Museum will also come to China.

There will be an emphasis on work involving new media and technology, according to the consulate. The program has been chosen "to showcase the quality, diversity, breadth and innovation of artistic Britain".

UK Now celebrates China and the UK as consecutive hosts of the Olympic Games, and commemorates the 40th anniversary of the resumption of China-UK diplomatic relations.

zhangkun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/11/2012 page15)