CRI听力:Chinese Acrobatics Marketed Globally

Winning more than 150 international top prizes, Chinese acrobats have been widely acknowledged in the international arena since 1981. But many of them remain faceless on the international commercial stages regardless of their achievements. The global marketing of Chinese acrobatics has long been a major issue for both the acrobats and acrobatic performance agencies.

Mi Lu, an official from the Association of Acrobats, a sub-agency of the China Federation of the Literary and Art Circle, has been involved with international performances of Chinese acrobatics since 1989. He has his own specific experience regarding the global marketing of Chinese acrobatics.

"Anything that does not enter the market may become useless in the end. Let me give you an example: Eighty of our 100 programs that have won gold medals in international competitions will not be able to enter the market. If the program does not get marketed, and the young acrobats grow, then the program will become useless."

One groundbreaker has been the Shanghai City Performing Company. With its bold and innovative efforts to create acrobatic performances of ballet classics, the company has successfully marketed Chinese acrobatics overseas.

The first show the company put on was a performance of "Swan Lake." After its debut at the Shanghai Grand Theater, the production gradually made its way to the international stage.

Sun Mingzhang is the general manager of the Shanghai City Performing Company.

"We made our international debut in the theater of the Kremlin. Our way of integrating acrobatics into ballet classics was rather new and not expected by the Russians. You know, Russia is the home of ballet and acrobatics. After the initial success, we continued our performances in St. Petersburg and then in Eastern Europe. And contracts flew in for the second and third years. We got requests from Germany, Austria and Switzerland."

For CRI, this is Li Ningjing.