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China Employs Art Festival to Cultivate Opera Fans
Eleven-year-old Ling Chen always performs ancient marshals because he favors the powerful voice and colorful costume of the men who were good at fighting.
Together with the other 400 pupils from 13 primary and high schools in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, Ling was on the stage of Zijin Theater Tuesday evening for showing well-known acts of Beijing Opera, including Drunken Concubine, Farewell Concubine and Shajiabang.
As part of its ambitious plan for cultivating young fans for the traditional Beijing Opera, the Beijing Opera Theater of Nanjing prepared the show at the ongoing Sixth China Art Festival, which lasts 16 days from September 28.
Shen Xiaomei, an opera singer who is a pupil of late Beijing Opera master Mei Lanfang, and her colleagues in the theater started to popularize the unique art in schools in 1995, which was welcomed by school administrators.
Shen always remembered what a headmaster said to her: the same as the Great Wall and the terra-cotta horses and warriors found in the Qinshihuang Mausoleum, Beijing Opera is the treasure of the Chinese nation.
Since 1995, Shen and the theater have organized more than 5,000 lectures, with over 145,000 pupil audience. Shen also expanded the artistic education to neighboring Zhenjiang, Xuzhou and Suzhou cities.
"We still plan to set up training courses for amateur opera teachers," Shen said.
A pupil's parent said that learning of the opera at leisure time greatly benefit his son.
"Our most important goal is to help the youngsters find aesthetic value of Beijing Opera and inherit the nation's cultural tradition," Shen said.
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