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Cultural Performance – China/UK positions

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism recently released figures relating to cultural performances across China for 2019.

They state that there were 17,795 performing arts groups in China – an increase of almost 700 from 2018 – and 2.97 million performances were staged which had been watched by over 1.2 billion domestic audiences. 57% of these performances were held in China’s rural areas.

Obviously, there has been a huge impact from the Covid-19 pandemic and these figures will be drastically cut for 2020 as the ‘lockdown’ measures have created a huge gap in permissible live performances. However, the situation is beginning to improve as entertainment venues are continuing to open for business.

The Shanghai Grand Theatre opened its doors on June 18th with the Shanghai Ballet Company performing ‘Swan Lake’ to a 30% capacity audience. As reported previously, due to travel restrictions and quarantines, the Shanghai Grand Theatre will be focusing on locally based performance troupes for the immediate future and, although many travel restrictions have been lifted in China, the recent ‘second wave’ outbreak in Beijing shows this to be sensible planning.

In the UK, whilst Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are currently maintaining the 2m social distancing rule, England has reduced the acceptable distance to 1m plus – whereby, although the 2m social distancing guide should be adhered to it is acceptable to reduce this slightly (to a minimum of 1m) in certain circumstances. This has meant that pubs and restaurants, museums, galleries and cinemas will all be allowed to open from July 4th – provided they have made adequate safety arrangements and seating plans to ensure an absolute minimum distance of 1m is maintained between staff and customers. Unfortunately, theatres and concert venues are still held under restriction and, although certain facilities will be allowed to open, live performances will not be permitted until a further governmental review has been held.

On a different note, a fascinating technological development in China has led to opportunities to view some of the most iconic historical landmarks without having to travel far. The Yungang Grottoes, a series of 45 major caves housing 59,000 stone statues of Chinese Buddhist artwork, is located in the Northern Chinese city of Datong in Shanxi province. Since 2016 a team from the Cultural Heritage Research Institute of Zhejiang University and the Yungang Grottoes Research Institute have been collecting high-fidelity 3d digital data from which they have created a  1:1 3D printed replica of Cave Number 12 – ‘The Music Cave’ - including images of the first Chinese Symphony Orchestra from the 5th Century.

The replica of the cave is 14m deep, 11m wide and 9m high, with less than 2mm margin in reproduction error. The interior has been skilfully repainted with pigments close to the original colouration. It is currently open to visitors at the Museum of Art and Archaeology in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province but its mobile form means that it can be disassembled for transportation and plans are being made for a world tour in the near future.