Create a fairy-tale cat world with the audience. The Beijing play "The Cat God in the Forbidden City" will premiere at the Huangpu Theater in Shanghai at the end of the month.
At the end of January 2024, "Cat God in the Forbidden City" in the new space theater of Beijing Tianqiao Art Center will represent "Beijing Story" at the Huangpu Theater in Shanghai for the first round of 10 performances. By then, Shanghai audiences will be able to enjoy the authentic Beijing cultural feast without leaving Shanghai.
"Beijing Story" is an excellent small theater performance brand created by Beijing. It was launched in 2012 and has been held for 9 times. A total of 182 plays and nearly 400 performances have been launched, making it an important performance event brand in the capital.
"The Cat God in the Forbidden City" was jointly produced by China Children's Art Theater and Tianqiao Art Center. As an outstanding small theater play in "Beijing Story" in 2023, it has successfully completed more than a hundred performances at Tianqiao Art Center in August 2023 and has won many awards. It is loved by the audience, especially children.
"The Cat God in the Forbidden City" transforms the theater into a fantasy "cat cave" with Beijing characteristics. It combines the traditional culture of the Forbidden City to tell the humanistic history and changes of the times in Beijing.
The stage design of the play is distinctive. The eaves of the Forbidden City, the huge cat hole installation and the cute cat puppets create a fairy tale-like cat world. Before the official opening of the performance, the show is full of ceremony and highly interactive. The audience will receive cat ear headdresses and voluntarily draw cat whiskers on their faces, as if they have become a member of the cat world. During the performance, the actors frequently interacted with the audience at close range, causing bursts of laughter from adults and children. The story developed to a touching point, and the audience even shed tears.
The upcoming performance of "Cat God in the Forbidden City" in Shanghai will integrate Beijing's traditional culture with Shanghai's new space stage, explore a breakthrough in the integration of multiple performing arts formats, further promote the development of a "small but exquisite" and "small but beautiful" new performing arts space, and promote The development level of performing arts services has been improved.
Yang Shucong, Party branch secretary and deputy general manager of the Tianqiao Art Center and one of the planners of "Cat God in the Forbidden City" said that the launch of the Shanghai tour and the development of cultural and creative products for the show will link Beijing and Shanghai in the form of cultural performance exchanges The two international metropolises are actively exploring strategies for the integrated development of culture, tourism, and creativity. Taking the development of new theater spaces as the guide and high-quality performance projects as the starting point, they actively explore the source of the industry chain of the performance industry and promote Beijing's excellent high-quality plays nationwide. Help build Beijing as a national cultural center.
In March 2023, Xicheng District in Beijing and Huangpu District in Shanghai established sister districts. The two parties decided to continue the traditional friendship between the two districts and actively build a platform for communication and exchange. As a new space performing arts cultural IP in Xicheng District, Beijing, "The Cat God in the Forbidden City" not only opens a new chapter for Xicheng District and Huangpu District to work together, but will also take this opportunity to continue to develop multi-level, multi-field, and multi-faceted projects. Cooperate in various forms and channels to jointly explore immersive, diverse and innovative cultural and performing arts content, and push the development of the national performing arts and cultural industry to a new peak.
Li Dong, the producer of the show, said: "I hope more adults and children in Shanghai will see the 'Cat God' from Beijing."
