August 6
Shanghai International Gymnastic Center
The British Royal Circus will perform in Shanghai. The circus has more than 300 performers from 20 countries. Many performers are international award winners. New music has been composed for the circus' tour of China. Animal stars, like brown bears and ferrets, will entertain children, along with clowns and acrobats. The circus will hold two shows daily at the Shanghai International Gymnastic Center from Aug 6-8, at 10 am and 7:30 pm.
777 Wuyi Road
August 7
Shanghai Oriental Art Center
Internationally renowned Hong Kong-born percussionist Lung Heung-wing will perform with his son Mark Lung and the Hong Kong Percussion Center ensemble in a family concert at the Oriental Art Center in Shanghai. Unlike other classical music concerts, Percussion Carnival for Summer 2010 hopes the audiences won't just sit quietly and listen, but actively take part in the music making. The concert will feature more than 40 different percussion instruments, including Latin and African drums, toys and environmentally friendly paper instruments.
425 Dingxiang Road
August 8
Expo Cultural Center
Oscar-winning music composer Tan Dun will perform on Aug 7 and 8, presenting his compositions for three martial art movies: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Banquet and Hero. Scenes from these movies will be projected in the background.
August 9
Shanghai Art Museum
This is the last day for the exhibition Ink Art Vs. Ink Art at Shanghai Art Museum. Featuring 46 pieces of contemporary artworks from Hong Kong, the exhibition presents the richness, diversity and solidity of the city's ink art development. As a fundamental part of traditional Chinese culture, ink art has been around for more than 1,000 years in China and other Asian countries. Western culture began influencing artists, modernizing ideas about ink art in the early 1900s. Hong Kong was the most influenced by the West, which brought many possibilities for its art scene.
325 Nanjing Road W
August 10
USA Pavilion, America Square
New York indie rock band, PaperDoll, will perform. PaperDoll's high-energy live shows have secured it a strong following. Its new song, Anything At All, sung in Mandarin, recently won the band acclaim from Kollaboration NY, a contest showcasing Asian American and Pacific Islander talent in 10 major US cities. The quartet has been featured on MTV, The Today Show, Maxim Radio and in Blender Magazine. Their debut album Ballad Nerd Pop has just been released and its promotion brings them to China on a six-day Global Citizens Tour.
August 11
Contrast Gallery
An exhibition, [Gold-Unicorn] Graphimage by Wei Ligang 2010, opens in Shanghai and continues until Sept 1. Wei's first solo exhibition in China is dedicated to the Chinese unicorn, one of the four magical and sacred animals at the origin of Chinese myth. The unicorn is the epitome of strength and miraculous power in Chinese traditional culture, and is a legendary auspicious omen of prosperity and success. This new works by China's leading avant-garde painter and calligrapher exemplify the artist's continuing exploration of calligraphic mark-making and the reinvention of tradition. Wei's works have been collected by museums including the British Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Today Art Museum in Beijing and the National Art Museum of China.
181 Jiangxi Road M
August 12
Shanghai Times Square
Today is the last chance to visit the exhibition, The Joy of Thinking, at Shanghai Times Square. Jointly presented by Shanghai Times Square and Dongallery, with support from the Belgium Consulate General in Shanghai, The Joy of Thinking features four Belgium artists and seven Chinese artists with 26 pieces of artworks. Belgian artists Lieve and Lore get their inspirations from Chinese lives. Their works, one figurative and the other abstract, bear the thinking of Chinese and Western traditional philosophy. Chinese contemporary artists such as Ji Wenyu, Zhu Weibing and Yang Yongliang focus on artificial sceneries. They render the human urbanization process in a humorous and teasing tone. Cheng Yuyang uses special photography skills to create a distorted image of the world. Zhang Xiangxi's installations display life settings without human beings. His works recreate the world in TV cases, inviting conversations between the minds of the audience and the artist.
99 Huaihai Road M
(China Daily 08/06/2010 page37)
