Multimedia magic show inspires Chinese children’s love for art
Updated 13:02, 16-Apr-2019
By Ding Siyue
["china"]
02:50
An eight-year-old girl, Lena, opens a magical album and is led to a magical art museum where all the paintings become alive.
This is the plot of "Out of the Blue - One Starry Night," a children's play recently staged in Beijing, where paintings, music and magic combine to provide an inspiring and artistic experience for its young audience.
Over 30 art masterpieces are involved: children can watch the flowers bloom in Claude Monet's "Water Lilies" or witness how a sneeze accidentally blows away half of Georges Seurat's "The Eiffel Tower."
With appealing magic, touching stories and beautiful music – it features a live piano and music by Mozart, Chopin, and Debussy – the play aims to cultivate children's interest in painting and art.
China has seen rapid growth in the market for children's theatre in recent years. Last year, nearly 20,000 shows of this kind were staged across the country.
Instead of just focusing on school subjects, more parents are now concerned about their children's development in other aspects. And they hope these plays can inspire their children's love of art and understanding of beauty.
"Ninety percent of our shows are kids' shows," according to You Xinghua, chairman of Zhejiang Grand Boat Culture Development Co., Ltd.
"Every year, we tour about 1,200 shows. It means nearly 1,000 of them are kids' shows. We are very happy to find that more families are paying more attention to education of art."
China currently has some 250 million children under 16. And with the popularization of children's art education, industry insiders believe the children's theatre market will continue to thrive.
(Cover picture: A still photo from "Out of the Blue - One Starry Night." /Grand Boat Boya Culture Photo)