Beijing People's Art Theater will present its representative work Top Restaurant at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of China: The Art of a Nation series. [Provided to China Daily]

China: The Art of a Nation presents Chinese arts and culture to audiences in the United States. Mu Qian reports.

From traditional folk song to contemporary opera arias, from Bernstein's overture to Tan Dun's Internet Symphony, the program for China-USA: A Celebration of Music highlights cultural exchanges between the two countries.

Conductor Xian Zhang, who is music director of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, will lead the Washington National Opera Orchestra and an international cast of vocalists and soloists, including Huang Ying, Carl Tanner, Tian Haojiang, Maria Eugenia Antuez, Jennifer Waters, and Li Chuanyun.

To be held on Sept 21 at the Opera House of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC, the concert will open China: The Art of a Nation, a series on Chinese arts and culture presented by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, in cooperation with the center.

"This series will highlight the vision and artistry of some of legendary contemporary artists from a nation whose ancient history is enriched with art and music and dance," says Michael Kaiser, the center's president.

"With this exciting program, I believe that we celebrate a shared commitment by the peoples of the United States of America and the People's Republic of China to the arts and a friendship that we cherish very much."

China: The Art of a Nation is inspired by the center's Festival of China in 2005, and is the largest-scale event of Chinese culture held in the US since the festival.

Running until Oct 30, China: The Art of a Nation will present music, dance, theater, and also visual arts from China. Over 300 artists will take part in the project.

"We are honored to revisit the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and have the 469th and 470th performances of Top Restaurant, a representative work of the realistic style of Beijing People's Art Theater," says Cui Ning, vice-president of the theater.

"China: The Art of a Nation gives us an opportunity to not only present our Beijing-style of acting, but also introduce to American audiences the social and cultural backgrounds of a particular period in Chinese history."

Beijing People's Art Theater participated in the Festival of China in 2005 and performed Lao She (1899-1966)'s Teahouse. This time it will present another classic of the troupe, Top Restaurant, which epitomizes the Chinese culinary culture through telling of the ups and downs of a Peking roast duck restaurant from the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to the period before the founding of New China in 1949.

As with Teahouse, English subtitles will be provided for the performances of Top Restaurant. The subtitles of both works were translated by Ying Ruocheng (1929-2003), an actor with Beijing People's Art Theater.

"There are a lot of colloquial words in the Beijing dialect in Top Restaurant that are hard to translate, but I believe that our performance will deliver something about human nature that is shared by both the Chinese and American peoples," Cui says.

Compared to Top Restaurant, Two Dogs by National Theater of China is a more contemporary work, popular among today's urban young Chinese.

The play describes the adventures, in a non-realistic way, of two dogs that leave their hometown and go to the city to pursue their dreams. However, they find city is not what they expected, and they have to do a lot of absurd things to make a living. Because of this, they have many views about life to tell.

In many parts of the play the two actors, Liu Xiaoye and Han Pengyi, adopt the form of stand-up comedy, and they will perform a part in English during shows at the Terrace Theater on Sept 20 and 21.

"Two Dogs is a play about the life and thinking of today's young people, and we are glad to be representing contemporary Chinese drama to perform in the United States," Liu says.

Selection for the program China: The Art of a Nation was based on the principle of "balancing the traditional and modern, indigenous and foreign, and respecting the aesthetics of the American audiences", says He Yong, director of Division of American and Oceanian Affairs, Bureau for External Cultural Relations, Ministry of Culture.

Other programs include The Red Detachment of Women by the National Ballet of China, Romance of the West Chamber by Northern Kunqu Opera Theater, Haze by Beijing Dance Theater, and concerts by Inner Mongolia Chorus and the Beauty and Melody Orchestra.

There will also be two exhibitions, Contemporary Ceramic Painting from Jingdezhen, and Landscape in Mind by leading Chinese artists who combine traditional and contemporary ideas on landscapes in the context of public art.

China: The Art of a Nation is held against the backdrop of increasing cultural exchanges between China and the US in recent years. The "China-US Joint Statement" issued during President Hu Jintao's visit in January to the US declared: "The two sides agreed to discuss ways of expanding cultural interaction, including exploring a China-US cultural year event and other activities".

The Chinese Ministry of Culture is also planning a series of cultural events in New York City next year.

"The ancient Chinese scholar Zengzi once said over 2,000 years ago, 'Virtuous men use culture to make friends'," says Chinese Minister of Culture Cai Wu. "As the Ministry of Culture of China joins hands again with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to launch a series of cultural activities themed on China: Arts of A Nation, we hope that such cultural exchanges will help to step up communication between the peoples of China and the United States, and deepen their mutual understanding and trust for each other."