The 6th Wuzhen Theatre Festival will be held in Wuzhen from October 18^th to 28^th, 2018! This afternoon, Chen Xianghong, Huang Lei, Lai Shengchuan, and Meng Jinghui, the four Wuzhen Theatre Festival promoters, announced all specially invited plays of the 6th Wuzhen Theatre Festival.

The Wuzhen Theatre Festival has grown into a dramatic event with the most international influence in Asia, with its international theatrical performances on the contemporary frontier, innovative young theatre artist competition, diverse and rich dramatic activities and utopian creative environment.

This year’s theatre festival takes "magnanimity" as its theme: Magnanimity, It is the capacity of an apparatus. Like the earth, bearing the growth of all things.

The specially invited plays of this festival are all-embracing and comprehensive, especially reflected in the wide geographical coverage (1): the specially invited plays coming from Asia, Africa, Europe, America and Oceania; the abundance of themes (2): history, atonement, time, race, environment, identity, love, desire and redemption, gene and propagation, individual growth, artificial intelligence; the richness of art form (3): stage presentation being rich in contemporary art, experimental drama, immersive space, expressionistic traditions, symbolic concepts, multimedia images, pantomime, dance dynamics, music theatre... Wuzhen Theatre Festival is like a huge nebula of human culture, incorporating all the stage arts of ancient and modern, China and other countries, incorporating multidimensional empowerment which is also the concrete presentation of the theme "magnanimity" this year.

Promotional video of the 6th Wuzhen Theatre Festival 

Famous Theatrical Troupe “Odyssey”

As always, world famous historical theatrical troupes are invited to proceed with the legend of "travel and adventure". This year, four top-ranking historical theatre troupes adept at aesthetic expression are among invitees, namely, the Moscow Art Theatre from Russia, the Thalia Theatre in Germany, SCOT Theatre in Japan and Nowy Theatre in Poland. Although they get their great historical achievements, they still pursue breakthroughs and innovations, letting Chinese audience appreciate their contemporary side. The 6th Wuzhen Theatre Festival will be with all theatre lovers all over the world, looking forward to the magnificent nebula of world culture!

The Moscow Art Theatre was founded in 1898 by the founder of the world's largest theatre system and the master of drama, Stanislavski. It is a well-deserved place for training masters of modern art. The most famous playwrights of the 20^th century, such as Chekhov, Gorky, and Bulgakov, were vaulted to fame in the Moscow Art Theatre and created miracles here! At the same time, the Moscow Art Theatre is still the cradle of the Stanislavski’s performance system, The Stanislavski system, known as the "method" in the West, has become the gold standard for actors' training. In the aspects of performance, creation and art, the Moscow Art Theatre has made an irreplaceable contribution to the culture and art of the entire human race. On the occasion of the 120^th anniversary of the Moscow Art Theatre in 2018, the Wuzhen Theatre Festival is honored to invite this world-class troupe to China!‘

The famous Russian director Alexander Molochnikov, who won the Tabakov Award twice, will come to Wuzhen with his anti-war drama work 19.14! The production follows the story of several French and German soldiers during the World War I, presented in a form of cabaret with a Master of Ceremonies center stage. Molochnikov said that he did not want to create a didactic historical panorama, or a lecture about human cruelty, but to use the joyful music, dance and stories to reflect the topic of disaster and warfare for all mankind.

Nowadays, the 120-year-old Moscow Art Theatre still stands at the forefront of art pursuit in the world, maintaining a high level of creativity and exploration. The troupe, comprising 120 actors, has nearly 60 works, which are performed in turn in three theatres every night. The highly anticipated Moscow Art Theatre will come to China, to show the avant-garde power of the originator of modern drama to the theatrical lovers from all over the world! 

Thalia Theatre is one of the most famous theatres in Germany. The theatre has been frequently invited to the Berliner Theatretreffen and been granted with the title of “Theatre of the Year”. It is also the birthplace of the world famous cross-cultural festival “Lesin Theatre Festival. Thalia Theatre’s director born in the 1980s, Bastian Kraft, will bring The Dancer in the Dark to the Wuzhen Theatre Festival. The most striking thing about the show is that the actors will perform completely in the dark, and the audience will be immersed in the experience of “blindness”. The play was based on the film by Lars Von Trier. In Wuzhen, it is Bastian Kraft's second encounter with the Danish director, one of initiators for Dogme 95, following his acclaimed production Dogville at the Schauspiel Cologne.

The Japanese SCOT Troupe was founded and led by Tadashi Suzuki, a "Nippon National Treasure Master". The troupe moved from the downtown area of Tokyo to Toga. Since then, Toga has become the center of international research activities and training for performance art practitioners, and been hailed as the performing arts archive. Tadashi Suzuki is a phenomenal-level theater director highly respected by international theatre circles in recent years. This time he will bring his new play Spring Time in the North to the Wuzhen Theatre Festival. In this show, we can see Suzuki's perspective on body -- The inner and outer appearances of the human beings are not necessarily the same, and the form of expression in this play has developed more profoundly, describing that the expansion of human’s inner heart will eventually erase the reality of appearance.

The Nowy Theatre, founded by Krzysztof Warlikowski, is one of the most active institutions representing Polish culture on the international stage. It is the spatial expansion of the European Art Nouveau environment and is also a theatrical troupe with great aesthetic influence. Wojtek Ziemilski is one of the most famous directors in today's European theatre world, for One Gesture, he was awarded the grand prix of the Fast Forward-Europäisches Festival Für junge Regie in Dresden, a special award of the MESS Festival in Sarajevo, and the main award of the 38th International Zürcher Theatre Spektakel w Switzerland. It is One Gesture that the director brings to the Wuzhen Theatre Festival. The play is performed in Polish and sign language. Ziemilski and his actors combine monologues with fascinating stage ideas to create new aesthetics of communication and narrative.

Classic Works Wake Up

The tribute and re-creation of the classics is an important trend in the current internationalization of theatrical culture and an important concern of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival. A tribute and interpretation of the excellent cultural heritage is among artistic themes of the theatre festival this year. Lao She’s Tea House, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, the German expressionist film masterpiece The Carinet of Dr. Caligari, Shakespeare's As You Like It and the French contemporary literary masterpiece Little Prince are the excellent cultural heritage of world. They lay the foundation for the Wuzhen Theatre Festival to stand on the whole world's theatre platform, paying tribute to the human culture.

Directed by Meng Jinghui, the famous Chinese theatrical director and artistic director of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, and starring Wen Zhang, a famous actor, the Sino-German cooperative drama Tea House is a tribute to the grand aesthetic of the Chinese literary master Lao She. The drama will begin its world premiere at the Wuzhen Theatre Festival and will be staged at the Wuzhen Grand Theatre as the opening drama of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival!

For this production, director Meng Jinghui has invited some youth actors who have personal styles in Chinese theatrical circle, such as Wen Zhang, Chen Minghao, Liu Chang and Ding Yi Teng . They will, together with Meng Jinghui, show respect for this theatre heritage. As cooperative work between China and Germany, the Tea House has extended an invitation to Sebastian Kaiser, a highly respected playwright in Germany. For decades, Sebastian Kaiser has been a leading frontier artist in European theatre world with his profound basic in theatrical literature and vigorous artistic vitality. He has created the Faust, Gambling Idiot and other more than 30 classics profoundly influencing the development of European art. This time, Sebastian Kaiser’s first joining Chinese contemporary drama will inevitably create much of a stir in the international aesthetics circle. Since its creation in 1956, the play Tea House, a carrier of profound times and historical significance, and has a special status in the cultural heritage of contemporary theatre. Meng Jinghui will, bearing his respect for human cultural heritage in mind, draw nutrition from the tradition and at the same time, integrate contemporary elements into the tradition from the perspective of the entire human race, to create a “Spacetime Odyssey”.

After the premiere of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival in China, Tea House will start its tour in Germany, France, North America and other regions, amazing the world in aesthetics with Chinese classics!

The national treasure director from the Sibiu National Theatre in Romania, Silviu Purcarete, is the most internationally renowned Romanian director, who has worked for top theatrical troupes in Romania, Britain, Austria, France, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Hungary and other countries. By virtue of his exceptional artistic characteristics, he was awarded Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) in France ,while in Romania he received the Order of the Star of Romania. At this occasion, he will come to Wuzhen with his classic play Waiting for Godot, starring Constantin Chiriacand Marian Râlea, two of Romania's most respected actors. In the interpretation of Purcarete, Beckett's play is endowed with a film feeling that allows the audiences linger between the unrealistic, irrational, and virtual dreams in the real dialogue.

Radu Stanca National Theatre?

Indian director Deepan Sivaraman's The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is perhaps the first Indian contemporary drama to meet Chinese audiences. The play is adapted from a German Expressionist film in 1920. Noted for its striking use of scenography and material, this reinterpretation of the original classic is highly fragmentary yet holistic in its conception. With more than a passing nod to Alfred Hitchcock, the play manifests profound psychological connotation as a riveting psychological thriller multi-layered in its scope. This work seeks to violently disrupt our perception of reality, forcing us to rethink our essentialised understanding of truth.

Director Sun Xiaoxing and young actors from Tianjin People's Art Theatre, who portray themselves as Ranevskaya, Gayev and Anya, return to the Cherry Orchard, they are not just old owners, but new owners. Shakespeare's As You Like It has been staged for 400 years in the world, with numerous editions. The two Chinese youth directors Yu Fengxia and Chen Tao co-edited As You Like It, presented in the form, rhythm and hypothesis of Chinese opera, has brought us a novel feeling. The Wind, Sand and Stars written and directed by the Chinese young director Ke Lu, reinterprets The Little Prince and Terre de Hommes, two masterpieces of French Writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The exquisite stage installation, the use of visual symbols, and the close-up viewing experience endow the great work with a strong literary exploration spirit. It not only presents a path in-depth understanding of the creation of the Little Prince to the audience, but also let them think deeply about life. 

Experimental Experiment

Wuzhen presenting the surprising experimental play fossils, Pioneer exploring subversive life

In the 1950s, an experimental theatre wave set off around the world. Being a turning point in the history of theatre, experimental theatre, featuring the exploration spirit, rebellious temperament and innovative ideas, breaks the old barriers of theatre. Since then, theatre has not only come from daily life, but also turned to life in a pioneering manner. This is a progressive step from the edge to the mainstream, from monotonous to rich theatre presentations, experimental theatre like a strong stimulant, injecting unprecedented freedom into the theatre stage. This year's Wuzhen Theatre Festival invites a number of world-reputed experimental theatre enlighteners and inheritors. In addition, in the Wuzhen Dialogues section of this festival, pioneers of experimental theatre in the 20^th century such as Lee Brewer, Tadashi Suzuki, Meng Jinghui, Lai Shengchuan and Jin Shijie to review the cross-century experimental wonders.

The Lan Ling Theatre Workshop, the originator of Taiwanese experimental drama, was founded in 1978. Lan Ling not only directly or indirectly incubated many of the most noteworthy theatre troupes in Taiwan, including Performance Workshop, Ping-Fong Acting Troupe and U-Theatre, but also brought together a band of performance-loving amateurs such as Jin Shijie, Zhuo Ming, Li Guoxiu, Liu Ruoxuan, Martini, Yang Liyin, Deng Anning, Zhao Ziqiang and other Lanling people, whose continuous efforts and contributions to the Taiwanese theatre have allowed it to flourish, leaving a far-reaching impact on the island's performance arts. Lai Shengchuan, the permanent director of Wuzhen Theatre Festival, also cooperated with and created stage works for Lan Ling Theatre Workshop in the early days. To commemorate the 40^th anniversary of the Lanling Theatre Workshop, Jin Shijie, one of Taiwanese famous artists and founders of Lanling Theatre Workshop, acts as screenwriter and director of Experimental Actors Studio, which reproduces the classic works of Lan Ling Theatre Workshop and interprets story of the Lanling people on the theatre with new materials. At the occasion of the 40^th anniversary of the Lan ling Theatre Workshop, some of the most legendary actors gather together again to collaborate on this production, tracing back to the stories of how they stepped into the theatre world and joined the family of the Lan Ling Theatre Workshop. In this soul-searching and truth-seeking journey, they are bound to touch the local audience by looking back in their theatre and performing careers in the context of the collective memories of the island.

The American Mabou Mines Troupe is an artist-driven experimental theatre troupe. Its works are created through multi-disciplinary, technologically innovation under the collaborations among its members and a wide world of contemporary filmmakers, composers, writers, musicians, choreographers, puppeteers and visual artists. With more than 120 works created, Mabou Mines Troupe has been honored with more than 100 major awards. Among these plays, Animal Magnetism is totally redirected for this year's Wuzhen Theatre Festival by Veteran Mabou Mines Troupe’s playwright Terry O'Reilly (Yi Guanghai) and Lee Breuer, Mabou Mines Troupe’s founder and a pioneer of American experimental theatre. This next incarnation draws upon the cutting-edge New York puppetry of Jessica Scott to revamp their original collaboration. Playing jazz with pop icons, movie plots and a wide assortment of musical forms from Bossa Nova to Rap, R&B and Rock, Animal Magnetism weaves together original songs and Eve Beglarian's sweeping sound to tell a story.

As one of the most important theatre people of the 20^th century, the Polish artist Jerzy Grotowski brings revolutionary changes to contemporary theatre and proposed the well-known “poor theatre” concept. The Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards Work Center Studio established in Italy is a descendant of the Griffith, studying and practicing the spirit of the experimental theatre. In their work The Living Room, by starting from this fundamental action that can take place in a living room, they enter an investigation into how the potentialities of performance craft can both enrich and be enriched by daily interpersonal relations and realities.

Engaged in the theatre experiments in the late 1980s, Director Tian Gebing founded Paper Tiger Theatre Studio in 1997. He has initiated and curated a number of art creation projects and events. Paper Tiger works are seen in many cities worldwide. The 500 Meters: Kafka, The Great Wall, Images from the Unreal World and Daily Heroism premiered at Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. The play draws a lot of classic texts and puts them together without excessive manner, abandoning the intuitive image communication mode, and greatly expanding the room for imagination.

Director Li JianJun is an important practitioner of contemporary theatre art in China. His series of theatrical works reflect his concern for the living situation of ordinary people. He combines the historical experience in visual arts with the study of theatre media, which gives his work a distinct spirit of innovation. In recent years, his works have received extensive attention and controversial discussion because of their critical cultural stand and exploration of theatre aesthetics. Inspired by the work of the same name written by American short story Writer Raymond Carver, the New Youth Group under the leadership of Director Li has created a new drama named Popular Mechanics in 2018. This play focuses on the ritual feeling and empathy that ordinary people have obtained in transitory performance. When ordinary people act on the stage not as ‘actors’, how will their completely different temperaments and life experiences bring changes to the characters, lines, reality, and the boundaries of self in the theatre.

Director Wang Chong is among the most influential 80's Chinese theatre director. He has been continuously exploring contemporary artistic vocabulary and tapped the contemporaneity of theatrical themes. With his works showed in 16 countries, he is the first to receive the international commission or investment for his eight works in the past five years. Constellation was produced by British grotesque maverick genius Nick Payne. It premiered in London in 2012 and won the Best Play of the Year sponsored by London Standard Evening News. Wang Chong believes that this is a perfect play once in a decade, so he decided to put the play on the stage in China. He combines the lens of language with the theatre space and constructs the dual-view dramatic space with dispassionate real-time images and exquisite 'quick cuts'.

Youth Utopias 

The award-winning repertoire of Young Theatre Artists Competition returning to the stage, Wuzhen exploring the Mexican ghost talent youth

Over the past six years, the Wuzhen Theatre Festival Young Theatre Artists Competition Unit has been the most dynamic and popular drama section of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival. The Wuzhen Theatre Festival Organizing Committee has set up the “Best Drama Award” and “Best Individual Performance Award” every year to support the creation of young Chinese dramatists. For many young dramatists who have stood on the world stage, the Wuzhen Theatre Festival Young Theatre Artists Competition Unit is the place where their theatrical dream begins. 。

The First Love and First Kiss are the biggest surprises of this year's Wuzhen Theatre Festival. They are also a special gift for the audience and young dramatists of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival Young Theatre Artists Competition Unit in the past 6 years! The First Love and First Kiss are composed of Ever Never, Untitled, Karma, If Leave, Fade Away, Static, six most popular award-winning repertoires of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival Young Theatre Artists Competition Unit, will be presented in two parts! The outstanding performance of Young Theatre Artists Competition unit over the years is a tribute to the youth theatre, and also the manifestation of the responsibility of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival as an international art platform. The Wuzhen Theatre Festival will continue to shoulder the responsibility of supporting young artists, maintaining the theater’s youth and making it become the Utopia for young artists!

Surprise Midnight Field

In addition to the review and joint performance of 6-year-old youth theatre plays, the Wuzhen Theatre Festival will specially invite the Mexican ghost talent youth - Héctor Flores Komatsu. Héctor is an excellent international young director, screenwriter and actor in Mexico. He studied under the honorary chairman of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival and the world theatre master Peter Brook, and starred in his peerless masterpiece The Valley of Astonishment and also obtained the Julie Taymor World Theatre Fellowship. Julie Taymor is the director of the musical The Lion King and the Julie Taymor World Theatre Fellowship only is a single place each year. He is the potential young talent director found by the Wuzhen Theatre Festival Organizing Committee this year. In particular, he chose to perform after the Young Theatre Artists Competition finished in the West Warehouse Theatre, indicating the spiritual connection with the Youth Championship. Héctor's Andares’ Andares is a theatre creation about the lives of indigenous youth in Mexico, devised collectively through personal anecdotes and ancestral myths, as well as traditional music and art forms. The play is a genuine, eye-opening, and intimate close-up on Mexico's most remote corners and the extraordinary daily stories of its humble inhabitants there. Andares will be performed at the Wuzhen Theatre Festival at 23:00 every night at the West Warehouse Theatre, giving a big surprise to the audience at midnight.

Dramatic Deformation

Song and dance images, avant-garde music to create novel magical wonders

Système Castafiore has no equivalent in the French performing art circle. Combining dance, sophisticated images and sound installation, the troupe’s theatrical representation of reality reflects the madness of our world. The masters-at-hand – choreographer Marcia Barcellos, and director Karl Biscuit, co-direct this impressively creative drama – Theory of Wonders of Système Castafiore style. The perfect combination of dance, music and visual art, and a poetic but funny image melted into one to give the magical aesthetic logic to the vast theme of the history of the universe.

The Argentina work Air Condition combines the energy and excitement of flying with the beauty and skill of modern dance. The creative idea is based on the application of technology in aerial dance, creating new space and gravity illusions. Brenda Angiel re-invents the tango and contemporary dance with avant-garde background music especially for the show. The dancers break the boundaries, dancing against the walls, on the floor, and floating through the air, creating a kaleidoscope of movement and animation.

The Dutch drama Breaking the Silence which is performed in collaboration with the Via Berlin Theatre Group and the Berlage Saxophone Quartet, adds a large amount of live music to the tragic story of the protagonist. The combination of music and text, and the excellent choreography will present a personal and stylized live sensory experience for the audience.

The Japanese work Zoo guides the audience to witness the strangest animal – the human being. The performance begins with an interpretation of the human body, and then introduces one aspect of humanity after another: there are humans during exercise, humans mimicking others, and humans in communication. As this takes place, the border breaks down between the human observers and the humans being observed. Maybe you can't be a bystander, everything has to be left to the theatre for answer. 

Zhao Liang is a contemporary dance artist and a pioneer practitioner of the new generation of Chinese modern dance. He has been not only an independent artist adept at performance and creation in the dance field in recent years, but also the first Chinese to win the Roman International Modern Dance Competition. In recent years, Zhao Liang has been praised as the 'Soul Dancer' with the Oriental mysticism and ‘Choreographer of Genius’. What is more, he has been hailed by the German media as ‘A Shepherd from The Orient’. The Tea Spell originated from a cultural relic unearthed in Famen Temple in China. Taking Tea as the starting point and taking dance as the masterstroke, a hallucinatory journey embarks on the ocean of Zen.

Digging A Hole is derived from the daily lives of two young artists, Lin Cuixi and Selena Lu and has brought about two works: Soup and You Are My Water. Both works will be unveiled at the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, which will lead the audience into a sober dream and in the mist of absurdity and sensuality, looking for the real self.

Living Elsewhere

What is the drama changing?

Brazilian drama Cabaret Fucô is a musical tragicomedy and has already been performed in 25 cities all over Brazil. The show discusses depression, women's rights, internet anxiety and bullying based on the perspective of philosopher Michel Foucault.

South African work The Fat Black Women Sing is a choreo-poem theatre play, performed in Sotho, isiZulu, isiXhosa and English. Through music, dance and performance, five fabulously plump black women confront the so-called norms, redefining the standard of beauty and their "female back stage history".

Developed over three years by Morgan Rose of Red Stitch Actors Theatre from Australia, Desert 6:29pm composes a sad but warm love song. Morgan Rose is one of the most exciting emerging playwrights in Australia, bringing her unique humor and attention to this heart-breaking and finely wrought new work.

Young artist Zhao Chuan, founded and has been running Grass Stage, which produces socially important contemporary fringe theatre works. In the springtime, Grass Stage, several potters and friends presented an initial performance of their new work Gele Mountain through a 78-hour firing process in the mountain. This piece intertwines labor, food and drink, water and fire, clay and wood, body, sound, image, reading, as well as village gossip. These elements react together and provoke each other, putting theatre back into the fundamental relationship between time, material, labor and nature.

Note: On August 16th, ticket booking is about to begin

At 10:00 on August 16th, 2018, the tickets of the Specially Invited Plays of the 6th Wuzhen Theatre Festival in 2018 will be sold on the official website of Wuzhen Theatre Festival and Damai.cn! The fare of the Specially Invited Plays will be implemented at a low price of less than 300 yuan per guest (the drama ticket of Wuzhen Theatre Festival does not include Wuzhen Scenic Spot tickets. Guests purchasing tickets (excepting discount tickets and reservations free tickets) of the Specially Invited Plays can be allowed to enter Wuzhen West Scenic Spot once for free). The 50-yuan limited special ticket will be launched as always (guests are admitted to the scenic theatre by holding the Wuzhen West Scenic Spot ticket).

In addition to the popular Young Theatre Artists Competition units and the Outdoor Carnival, the Wuzhen Dialogues, Drama Workshops, Long Street Banquets and other drama-derived activities, this year's Wuzhen Theatre Festival will also launch the "Drama Tent Camp" section. You will have a good time in camping experience, living young and freer.

Ticket purchasing methods:

Wuzhen Theatre Festival official website: www.wuzhenfestival.com

Official consultation booking hotline: 0573-88731088

Wuzhen Tourism Reservation Website: www.ewuzhen.com

Exclusive ticketing agent: www.damai.cn

Keywords: The 6th Wuzhen Theatre Festival, tickets sold on August 16th.