Two to tango

China prepares to move its feet to Latin music as a wide-ranging cultural program unfolds this year, Chen Nan reports.

The largest cultural exchange program ever between China and Latin America will be held soon with a series of events planned in China and 30 Latin American and Caribbean countries through the year, says Zhu Qi, deputy director of the Bureau for External Cultural Relations, an affiliate of China's Culture Ministry.

President Xi Jinping had proposed 2016 as the "year of cultural exchanges" between China and the Latin American and Caribbean countries two years ago while attending the China-Latin America and Caribbean Summit in Brasilia.

The opening ceremony will be held at Beijing's Tianqiao Performing Arts Center on March 25. Organized by the China Arts and Entertainment Group, hundreds of artists from Latin America and the Caribbean world will display various art forms to audiences in China, such as the salsa, tango and ballet.

The CAEG, which was founded in 1957 as the country's first performing arts outfit to engage in cultural-exchange programs, will also take Chinese pianist Lang Lang on a tour of four Latin American countries, including Chile and Argentina, in August.

The celebrated pianist, who has previously played in Latin America, says the local people have left an impression on him.

"I get inspired when I perform there," says Lang, who is "image ambassador" for the events this year. "I once watched tango and salsa performances at homes in Argentina and Brazil. From a very close distance, I could feel the dancers' passion for both dance and life. My heart almost jumped out of my chest."

Other than playing at concerts, his future tour of that part of the Americas will include lectures to young adults on music.

During a past visit to Venezuela, Lang had collaborated with conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and the two remain good friends.

Dudamel's project, which uses classical music to help change the lives of young Venezuelans living in poverty, crime and despair, deeply touched Lang, he says.

"Those children become confident and become better people because of music. I am so impressed by Dudamel's efforts. I hope that I can do a similar project in China," Lang says.

Other performers in the series include the Qingdao Symphony Orchestra and the Colombia Symphony Orchestra,which will perform together in Chile, Colombia and Peru in October.

Chinese conductor Zhang Guoyong will lead the Buenos Aires Philharmonic in a show in Argentina, too.

For Zhang Yu, president of the CAEG, introducing the colorful cultural elements of Latin America to Chinese audiences has been a longtime dream.

He started to learn Spanish at Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1978 and worked at a Culture Ministry unit for Latin American exchange programs a few years later.

He especially likes the carnivals,he says, when people gather in the streets in flamboyant costumes to sing, dance and make merry.

In 2006, the CAEG brought more than 200 Mexican artists to Beijing for the Meet in Beijing Arts Festival, a 15-year-old international festival hosted by the Culture Ministry.

The following year, Zhang Yu took six Chinese art troupes and two exhibitions for tours of Mexico.

In 2012, the CAEG invited the Cuban National Ballet to perform Swan Lake in Beijing, Shanghai and the southern city of Guangzhou. The same year, Tango Desire, a dance performance from Argentina, toured China. This year, the same show will return to the country.

The Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero's ongoing debut exhibition in the country at Beijing's National Museum of China and the China Art Museum in Shanghai is seen serving as a "warm up" gig ahead of the series of events to mark the year of cultural exchanges between China and the American countries this year.

"There is a variety of performing arts from China and Latin America that are unknown to audiences in both countries because we haven't offered them yet. But that's what we are doing now," Zhang Yu says.

The closing ceremony for the year's cultural programs will be held at the National Grand Theater in Peru in November.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn