Wuzhen Theater Festival calls for creative renderings

The 10th Wuzhen Theater Festival will be held from October 19 to 29, with the theme "Arise."

Wuzhen, in neighboring Zhejiang Province, is an ancient watertown with well-preserved 16th-century architecture and stone bridges – an ideal backdrop for play, literature and art.

The festival, launched in 2013 by cultural heavyweights Chen Xianghong, Huang Lei, Stan Lai and Meng Jinghui, offers a platform for young theater people to learn, create and share.

The Emerging Theater Artists' Competition, as the core of the festival, is intended to encourage young people's creative minds and reshape the value of original theater.

Over the last 10 years, over 8,100 artists have participated in the competition. Among them, nearly 600 have left their mark with 143 original works.

This year's Emerging Theater Artists' Competition will focus on "train tickets, world-famous paintings, and horses" as three elements for theater renderings. Participants must employ all three elements in a theatrical presentation lasting no longer than 30 minutes.

Participants can register on the Wuzhen Theater Festival's official website (www.wuzhenfestival.com) until August 20. A preliminary jury will make a decision based on the online application results and release the list of 18 successful finalists on September 24. The final prizes will be awarded to six of them.

Over the 10 days of the festival, hundreds of groups will stage over 2,000 performances, ranging from comedy, opera, installation art, traditional dance theater, puppet theater, and digital performances to experimental poetry, music and dance.