Adelaide calling

Contemporary dance 7, by Chinese Tao Dance Theater, premieres in Adelaide Festival Centre in 2014.[Photo by Fan Xi/China Daily]

Adelaide Festival Centre now has four festivals every year, including Come Out Children's Festival in May, the Cabaret Festival in June, the Guitar Festival in August and OzAsia Festival in September.

Launched in 2007, the Guitar Festival has shows, competition and a one-week summer camp to train guitar players. An enthusiastic classical guitarist himself, Gautier says he knows China has many talented guitarists such as Yang Xuefei, and the NCPA has chamber musicians and concerts, so he wants to get Chinese players to perform at the Guitar Festival in Adelaide.

"We are always willing to present Chinese works, touring Chinese works in Australia, where Chinese have become the second-largest population and Mandarin has become the second language," he says.

In the past 10 years, the Adelaide Festival Centre has presented productions by the Shanghai Ballet Company, the Shandong Acrobatics Company, the Shandong Song and Dance Theater, the National Theater of China, and works by Tan Dun, Jin Xing and other contemporary artists.

Last year, they co-commissioned the Chinese Tao Dance Theater with Sadler's Wells to create 7. The piece had its world premiere in Adelaide as part of the OzAsia Festival.

This October, his center presented leading Chinese director Meng Jinghui's play Amber, which was co-commissioned by the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Shanghai International Arts Festival and the Singapore Arts Festival in 2005 when Gautier worked as executive director of Hong Kong Arts Festival.

"The great thing about Meng's work is, it's always changing, growing, but the basic idea, basic fabric is there," he says.

Because South Australia and East China's Shandong province have had sister-city relations for 30 years, Adelaide has introduced many shows from Shandong. Gautier is eager to broaden the vision outside Shandong because of his longer bond with China's arts scene.