Francophile's club

The Croisements festival is now a major foreign cultural event in China, drawing more than 4 million visitors, Lin Qi reports.

A window into France, the annual Croisements ("crossing") festival has grown into one of the biggest foreign cultural events in China since its launch in 2006.

Every spring, music, dance, theater, movie, art and literature activities are held in some 30 cities across the country. The festival also boosts Sino-French relations. This year, the festival's 12th edition will be held from May 8 to July 9, featuring many more performances, exhibitions, film screenings and discussions as compared to last year.

The Croisements program attracted more than 4 million people last year, and some events were live-streamed as well, according to the French embassy in Beijing. This year's festival will highlight a lineup of performers and artists demonstrating the fine quality of French and European art.

Works dating to the 19th century as well as by contemporary artists will be on show at two exhibitions.

The evolution of French art from realism to modernity will be marked at a touring exhibition, titled From Monet to Soulages: Paths of Modern Western Painting (1805-1975), in Beijing, Chengdu and Wuhan. On show will be 51 paintings from the collection of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Saint Etienne Metropole, sailing through impressionism, cubism, surrealism and abstract art.

Another exhibition, High Tension, will offer a glimpse into the vitality of French contemporary art by bringing together the works of eight winners of the Marcel Duchamp Prize, a high-profile French honor for artists, who show their critical approach to the advancement of technology and urban development.

Beijing will host a bulk of the events while important shows will also be held in Tianjin and other cities. The 12-hour play 2666 will be staged at the Tianjin Grand Theater over July 8-9. It is adapted from last novel of the same title of Chilean novelist Roberto Bolano (1953-2003).

Zhang Qing, the theater's program director, says she decided to bring the play to Tianjin after she saw it at last year's Avignon Festival, one of the world's leading contemporary performing arts festivals held annually in the French city of Avignon.

"The play has a complicated structure - its five parts are disconnected and each part is composed of fragmented stories," Zhang says.

"I was impressed by the director's ability to reconnect the elements in a rhythmic way, with the support of powerful music and videos. I didn't feel tired even after watching it for hours."

This year, the Croisements program also highlights the cooperation between French and Chinese artists for the revitalization of traditional cultures. Performers from the French music group Doulce Memoire and the Hunan Puppet and Shadow Art Protection and Inheritance Center will jointly present What Do Pandas Dream About, a musical that addresses environmental issues. It blends Chinese puppet theater tradition with Western Renaissance music, and will be performed in Changsha, Wuhan and Yichang.

The festival will involve many female artists. The French ambassador to China, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, says that is a reflection of France's "ongoing efforts to improve gender equality in the arts".

French actress Isabelle Huppert will give recital performances of Marguerite Duras' L'amant (The Lover) in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing. In January, Huppert, 64, won the Golden Globe for best actress in a motion picture for her performance in Elle.

Photographer Mai Lucas, who lives in France and the United States, will show at the exhibition, titled Kids, her snapshots of young Chinese in Kunming and Changsha.

"They are growing up in the process of globalization. They are mostly the only child in their families. They are nice and care about other people's opinions. They form several small, quite united groups," Lucas says.

In the photos, she tries to profile the youth of China, which she says represent the world's future.

The festival has designated five Chinese brand ambassadors for the Croisements events. They include musician Cui Jian, dancer Wang Yabin, sculptor Sui Jianguo, film director Jia Zhangke and illustrator Lu Ming.

Lu will participate in a graphic novel festival in June, in which Chinese and French artists will conduct workshops and show their works. He says the activities will introduce to Chinese readers the idea that comics are not just a pastime for children, but also an art form requiring creativity and the arrangement of scenarios.

Contact the writer at linqi@chinadaily.com.cn