Chinese Arts Centre

23 August – 23 September

Late night reception – 24 September: 5pm -7.30 pm

Sonia Kan’s First Step showcase, ‘The mother and her untamed entity’ is an exploration of the relationship between a mother and her daughter. The installation takes the form of two large crochet nets, hanging dubiously around one another. These nets represent the two female figures fighting for their position within the space but who are also reliant on each other at all times for support and stability.

Sonia is a Manchester based multi-disciplinary artist who is using the traditional skill of crocheting (taught by her mother) specifically for the First Step space. Her work is frequently preoccupied with texture and with testing the boundaries of its strength and versatility. For Sonia, experimenting with material comes naturally, and she often finds the materials as an extension of herself. Throughout the duration of her First Step showcase, Sonia will be continuing to work on the nets, creating a durational performance as part of the work, which will allow the work itself to constantly evolve.

Saturday 13th February 2010 Enjoy our Chinese New Year celebrations at Chinese Arts Centre providing festive activities from 12pm including: Chinese Tea Tasting Chinese Calligraphy and Origami with Mary Tang Live Chinese Music

Yellow Academy 2010 is an exciting new initiative between Yellow Earth (UK’s leading East Asian* theatre company) and ALRA (The Academy of Live and Recorded Arts). Outreaching to Belfast, Birmingham, London, and Manchester through February to May 2010, we will be bringing together a group of enthusiastic and curious young people down to London for a free week of acting training in Summer 2010.

Activities are free and open to all British East Asians aged 16-30 curious or interested in actor training. No previous experience necessary.

Round One – Taster Talks
In early 2010, Yellow Earth’s co-Artistic Director Jonathan Man and ALRA’s co-Director Clive Duncan will visit Belfast, Birmingham, London, and Manchester, to reveal secrets on how to get into the industry and provide a taste of what it really takes to be a successful professional actor. They will also introduce the work of both organisations.

Round Two – Audition Workshops
In Spring 2010, we return to Round One cities and offer a practical ‘taste’ of actor training through interactive workshops. Selected participants will be invited to the Acting Summer Camp.

Round Three – Acting Summer Camp
In Summer 2010, the successful participants will go to London to take part in an intensive week’s training. Free tuition and accommodation will be provided. Participants will work in classes with professional practitioners from Yellow Earth and ALRA, covering Movement, Voice, Acting and Mask.

Manchester
Taster Talk
Date & Time: Sat 20 Feb 2010, at 2pm
Venue: Chinese Arts Centre
Market Buildings, Thomas Street, Manchester M4 1EU

Audition Workshop
Date & Time: Sat 17 April 2010, 2-6pm
Venue: Contact Theatre
Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6JA
map

To sign up please send an email to info@alra.co.uk stating your name, age and contact details.
To find out more, visit www.yellowearth.org / www.alra.co.uk or phone 0208 870 6475.
You can find us on Facebook at ‘Yellow Academy’.

Date: Thursday, 4 February 2010
Venue: Jasmine Suite, Chinese Arts Centre

The Chinese Film Forum UK is a network based in Manchester that exists for the research and promotion of transnational Chinese film. The network includes Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Salford, The University of Manchester, Confucius Institute, Chinese Arts Centre and Cornerhouse.

Schedule:
1:30 – 2:00 Registration
2:00 – 2:30 Welcome and introduction

2:30 – 4:00 Panel papers
Chair: Felicia Chan, University of Manchester

Visible Secrets: a model for collaboration?
Andy Willis, University of Salford

The Japanese Connection to Taiwan Cinema
Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley, University of Leeds

The Melbourne Controversy
Robert Hamilton, Manchester Metropolitan University

Six Chinese Cinemas in Search of a Historiography
Song Hwee Lim, University of Exeter

4:00 – 4:30 Q&A roundtable

Moderator: Felicity Colman, Manchester Metropolitan University

4:30 – 5:30 Dim sum reception
Sponsored by Sweet Mandarin

Attendance to the symposium is free but please note that places are limited.
RSVP r.hamilton@mmu.ac.uk for a reservation.

Symposium participants will also receive a complimentary ticket to the Chinese Film Forum UK launch screening at Cornerhouse. Tickets will be allocated on the day of the symposium.

Alternatively, tickets for the film may be purchased through Cornerhouse Box Office 0161 200 1500 or online www.cornerhouse.org

6:30 Film screening
Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5NH

If You Are The One/Fei Cheng Wu Rao (CTBA)
Dir Feng Xiaogang/CN 2008/130 mins/Mandarin wEngST
Ge You, Shu Qi, Alex Fong Chung-Sun, Vivian Hsu, Fan Wei

Middle-aged multimillionaire inventor Qin decides to put an end to his bachelor life with online dating. Following some failed matches he eventually meets the heartbroken Smiley. They decide to take a trip to Hokkaido and soon find themselves falling for one another. A smart and entertaining romantic comedy from leading Chinese director Feng Xiaogang.

Sponsored by:
Chinese Arts Centre
Confucius Institute, University of Manchester
Research Institute of Cosmopolitan Cultures (RICC), University of Manchester
Sweet Mandarin Restaurant

Preview: 8 October 2009
Exhibition dates: 9 October 2009 – 9 January 2010
Artists: Kwan Sheung Chi, Lee Kit, Luke Ching, Pak Sheung Chuen, Wong Wai Yin

One Degree of Separation explores the role that social connections and artistic interconnections play in the practice of a group of artists from Hong Kong. The exhibition focuses not just on individual works of art but subtly draws attention to manifold interconnections between them, in a way that mirrors how the artists themselves relate to each other in their everyday lives, through shared concerns and working practices.

The art scene in Hong Kong is very small.  Most of the artists graduated from the Fine Art Department of the Chinese University, Hong Kong. With an intake of only 22 students per year there are no strangers within this circle. Since 2002 graduates have been renting empty factory units in Fotan, in the New Territories, Hong Kong. There are now over 100 artists’ studios in the area. With artists studying and making work in such a close-knit environment there is inevitably a great awareness and understanding of each other’s work but beyond this there are similar interests, collaborations, participation in and the referencing of each other’s work.

Luke Ching and Lee Kit collaborated on a picnic in front of the entrance of a huge shopping mall, Times Square, Hong Kong, to fight for the right to use public space. The event was initiated by Luke Ching in response to the newly announced definition of public space by a government official and the picnic was hosted by Lee Kit on his hand-painted cloth. Seven artists from Hong Kong joined the picnic. Pak Sheung Chuen and Luke Ching have both been regular columnists for a daily newspaper in Hong Kong, Ming Pao, using the paper as a platform for their ideas around social issues. Between 2006 and 2007, Kwan and Wong collaborated on creating a series of photographs that referenced the photographs of Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner taken by Hans Namuth.

Curated by Ying Kwok, Chinese Arts Centre’s curator, who herself studied on the Fine Art programme at the Chinese University, Hong Kong, One Degree of Separation provides an insider’s point of view of the intimacy of the Hong Kong arts scene.

Special thanks go to the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, London for their support without which the exhibition would not have been possible.

Image Credits
Luke Ching (left image)
Picnic in Time Square
4th April 2008
Artist Luke Ching and Lee Kit initial a picnic in the front entrance of Time Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong to fight for the right to use public space.
Wong Wai Yin (right image)
To Kwan Sheung Chi
B&W Photos, Light Box, 40 x 50 cm, 2006-2007
Photo courtesy of Kwan Sheung Chi.

Chinese Arts Centre and Wai Yin Chinese Society are collaborating to give you the opportunity to meet other learners of Mandarin Chinese. Group activities and free practice followed by a free screening of a mandarin language film, will help build vocabulary and encourage speaking confidence.

All learners at all levels welcome.

Every last Saturday of the month from 1.30pm.
For more Infomation please contact Gass – intern@chinese-arts-centre.org

11 July – 26 September 2009
Preview Thursday 16 July 5:30 – 7:30pm
Exhibition Tour 5:30- 6:00pm

This is the first UK solo exhibition of Shanghai based Ji Weiyu and Song Tao who collaborate under the name of Birdhead. Their youthful and rebellious spirit, the savvy way in they operate and their highly collaborative approach have made them a respected presence in the Shanghai arts scene.

The two artists grew up in Shanghai in the 1980s when mass urbanisation began in China. The frenetic pace of change in the city, one which leaves no time for questions or hesitation, is conveyed by the spontaneous and accumulative aesthetic of their work. Working in photography and video, with a highly improvised and self-contained approach, Birdhead take snapshots of their everyday lives and their surroundings. Their subjective and un-retouched take on urban reality captures not only a local cultural identity, from a native inhabitant’s point of view, but also invokes the physical experience of being in Shanghai, the relationship between the body and the city.

Ji Weiyu and Song Tao were born and live in Shanghai. Recent exhibitions include China Power Station II, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway, Birdhead Photography Show 2006-2007, BizArt, Shanghai, China and Individual Position II, ShangART, Shanghai, China.

Whisper Residency
4 – 18 May 2009
Li E Chen is an interdisciplinary artist and the creative director/founder of JUMP+. Li E Chen will use the 360 hours of the residency for rehearsal and performance, to explore and challenge how complexity can arise from interplay of simple series. She will use numerical series, binary codes and ‘class signs’, all based on the concepts of “incompleteness” and “uncertainty” developed by 20th century mathematician Kurt Gödel as a starting point to create a series of performances. Li E wishes to show how this interplay creates an “atmosphere” of uncertainty that permeates in Live Art and the dynamic nature of contemporary society.

Li E Chen received a BA in Alternative Theatre Practice from the Central School of Speech and Drama in 2004 and an MA in Media Arts Philosophy and Practice from the University of Greenwich in 2007. Since 2004 Li E Chen has also worked as a new media designer for UK and touring theatre and opera productions. Her work has included projects at the RHO2, Hackney Empire, W11 Opera, The Wellcome Collection London, The Stephen Joseph Theatre, Red Shift Theatre, The Malta international Theatre Festival in Poznan, Poland and, most recently, an outdoor production at Trafalgar Square with Yellow Earth Theatre Company and the Greenwich Dockland Festival.

In addition to her design work, she has her own performance and directing projects, where she has sought to develop cutting edge work that combines theatre, live performance and new media, using the creative training she has received in her BA and MA as the basis for many of her ideas.