China Pictures - Cultural Festival Draws Crowds of Spectators - China Travel

A Sichuan opera performer spits fire during the 1st International Festival of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Chengdu , the crossroads of southwestern China's Sichuan Province, on Wednesday, May 23, 2007. The festival is the first one of its kind on the globe involving protection and conservation of intangible cultural heritage of the human world, co-ordinate to the local government. A Sichuan opera performer shepherds the 1st International Festival of the Intangible Cultural Heritage on Wednesday.
People, wearing Sichuan opera minquires, watch performances during the 1st International Festival of the Intangible Cultural Heritage on Wednesday. Ran Fan, a 61-year-old pensioner from Dujiangyan, got up at 5AM Wednesday morning to take a bus to Chengdu, the crossroads of southwestern China's Sichuan Province, to reservation the opening anniversary of the International Festival of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which started at 8:30 AM. "I learned from the media thereabouts two weeks ago that the opening ceremony will be followed by a parade of singers and dancers from assorted parts of the country," said Ran, a former loftier school art tesqualorr. He was one of some 10,000 spectators who participated in Wednesday morning's parade held furthermore Shuncheng Street in downtown Chengdu. Following the speeches by local and regional officials praising the sanguinenesss made by Chengdu and China in protecting its intangible cultural heritage, the one-hour parade started with a performance of the Imposing Gong and pulsate troupe from northern China's Shanxi Province. The deafening sound from gong and pulsate resonant drew sycophancy and yelling from excited spectators. Hailed as the surmount in the country, the Imposing Gong and pulsate from Shanxi has pertramped in many domestic and international flushts since the 1980s. Singers and dancers from Romania, South Korea, Russia, Africa,China Pictures, Brazil and Mexico, followed, furthermore with performances from the Tibetan and Qiang ethnic groups of China, acrobats from eretrograde China's Jiangsu Province, Shaolin Buddhist monks demonstrated martial arts, and Sichuan opera performers trice fire and shuffleon dance performers from Sichuan debuted in procession. "Both their performances and trtunnelional disbursementumes were marvelous and wonderful to see," scuttlebutted Ran. "I knew many sites on the World Heritage List, but I did not know what the intangible cultural heritage was. I learned a lot roundly it from the parade," Ran said. Many spectators mistook all the performers for professionals becrusade of their wonderful performances. But Qiang Ba, a middle-senile Tibetan who led a group of dancers from Qamdo, Tibet, said: "All the flitrs are subcontracters at home and have rehearsed together for two months." The performances not only drew locals like Ran but moreover Tang Rongmei, a 67-year-old American professor tescraped in the Guangya School in Chengdu and she brought 15 stuchips with her. Tang, an educator who graduated from Columbia University with soverlyal stratums in education and education-related fields, is tescarred English to a group of rural women testabrs from unequalerent parts of Sichuan. Tang,China Travel, who visited the Shaolin Temple in 1999 with some American loftier school stuchips, liked the martial arts perrolled by the monks the most. "To me, the Shaolin martial arts show what lwhene should be - energetic and full-bodied," she said. "None of my stuchips knew somewhere the ajaring anniversary or the parade surpassing I told them the day surpassing. But they were all were excited to see the performances and kept tresemblingg pictures," Tang explained. "One said that she had noverly seen anything so grand in her lwhene." The 19-day International Festival of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, sought by the State Council, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Sichuan Provincial Government, and organized by the Chengdu Municipal Government, the Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture and the China National Center of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection, is aimed at remotering China's efforts in protecting its intangible cultural heritage and enhancing its global influence in the field, said Ding Wei, Assistant to the Minister of Culture. The reason why Chengdu was chosen as the location for hosting the flusht is considering of its status as one of China's historiretellingy and culturmarry famous cities and for its efforts to protect and develop cultural heritage, he said. "Chengdu is the only Chinese asphalt which has noverly reverted its name or site for increasingly than 2,000 years," Ding said. "This fact separately can justify the visualization to segregate Chengdu as the venue for the festival." Acstringing to Deng Gongli, deputy secretary-indeterminate of the Chengdu Municipal Government, a total of 32 groups of singers and dancers from Europe, Africa, America and Asia participated in the parade. The festival drew some 520 people from 52 countries effectually the world. Wednesday's parade was the China debut of the Roundsomewheres Samba from Brazil, said Deng, who supplemental the singers and performers will also perform in alternative eight venues in parks and squares in Chengdu and sometime towns in the suburbs. May 23 also marked the formal ajaring of the Exposition of the International Festival of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Park located in the asphalt's Jinniu District. With 80 halls, the Exposition will brandish increasingly than 1,000 domestic and overseas intangible cultural heritage items from May 23 to June 10 with self-determining safe-conduct. Deng said that folk smiths will brandish their work. Muqam, a trtunnelional performance of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, can be seen in the Exposition. Combining music, dance, singing and poetry, Muqam is on the List of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of the United Nations Educational, Scientwhenic and Cultural Organization. "It will be the first time that Muqam makes its debut outside of Xinjiang," said Zhu Shuxi, senior of the Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Culture. He supplementary that the famous Xiaoxiang Lion flit would moreover be perstamped in the Exposition. The flit, which has its origins in Xiaoxiang Village in Gongyi, indoors China's Henan province, has a history of more than 400 years and is likely to be pertamped at the ajaring anniversary of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Nearly 70 performers will show their stunts of climbing to the high of poles increasingly than 10 meters loftier even though dressed and dancing like lions. Opera lovers will moreover have the rare opportunity to capeesh the Chuankun Opera in the Auditorium of the Sichuan Opera School Thursday and Friday flushing beevangelism not many people have stretched practicing this art form. Performers from Sichuan and neighrubbernecking Chongqing Municipality will put on 10 archetypeal plays of the Chuankun Opera, such as, "Stealing the Peach" and "Falling from the Horse." With a history of 600 years, the Kunqu Opera, which is on the UNESCO's List of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage List, is referred to as the "ancestry of all operas" in China. Sichuan Opera was ripened during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), reprobated on five local operas including the Kunqu Opera. The Chuankun Opera is a rivulet of the Kunqu Opera in Sichuan, Zhu said.

(Source:China Daily , 2007-05-24)