Featuring 6 distinct physical productions from theatre companies based all over the world, the inaugural China Mime Festival brought some of the world’s leading physical theatre companies to China between October to December, 2017. The festival is majorly hosted in Guangzhou Dramatic Arts Centre. Some productions are also toured in different cities before or after the festival. The festival offered something unique in terms of their narrative, origin and production development but each shared one key characteristic exceptional physical theatric creativity.

Overcame the challenge of presenting a cutting-edge production in China the first time; targeted the right audience to see the productions and achieved a good figure for the company’s merchandise sales.

Get Happy is a brilliant family production created by the critically acclaimed Told by an Idiot. Their performance at the Beijing International Comedy Festival represents the first time that a theatre company from Britain has performed at this festival. Entering a world of artfully controlled chaos, physical comedy, live music, acrobatics and silly dancing the audience is brought into a world of hilarious mayhem. Performance Infinity was proud to have brought this great family comedy to China and organized the two-day workshop with our Chinese partner – Elite Group.

There are many arts festivals all over the world and indeed throughout China, but few can match the picturesque beauty of the Wuzhen International Theatre Festival. With a particular focus on both international new works and emerging Chinese talents in the water-town of Wuzhen. One of the unique qualities of the Wuzhen International Theatre Festival is the charm and variety of the theatre spaces. Each venue is within walking distance of each other, and include outdoor performing spaces and indoor venues adapted from ancient Chinese buildings.

Delighted to invite a host of working partners, colleagues and valued friends to the reception at Southbank Centre to launch a range of highly ambitious projects due in 2018, as well as celebrating a number of completed projects from 2017. The reception was a great opportunity to present the growing partnership between Jingying Entertainment Group and Performance Infinity. The reception event gave us the opportunity to inform our guests about the success of several brilliant projects completed in 2017, and the developing partnerships between British and European artists in China. Key speakers included Qiuyun Wang of Jingying Entertainment Group; Steve Ansell, the Artistic Director of Stage@leeds, University of Leeds, Dave Carey from Chickenshed Theatre, Wilma Kuite, the producer of Jakop Ahlbom Company, and Martin Lamb – writer and lead consultant for the upcoming production, the Science Detective.

Now in its second year at the London Southbank Centre, the China Changing Festival is a wonderful event that showcases a range of contemporary performance arts from across China. As well as this, the festival highlights the developing creative ties between the China and Britain. Little Soldier Zhang Ga is a puppet production for kids created by the War Horse China team during their performances of War Horse Mandarin version; Sink is created by a Chinese emerging director Xinxi Du who was trained in RADA and Royal Central of Speech and Drama, with her unique understanding of the certain period of history in China.

Hominus Brasilis tells the story of humanity in the most unique way. Five actors use their bodies and vocal sounds to tell important episodes from earth’s history. All scenes take place on a 5′ by 3′ platform with no scenery or props. The Brazilian company Cia de Teatro Manual were founded in 2010, and have been performing globally since then. 2017 represented the company’s first time performing in China, with their production of Hominus Brasilis performing at the Beijing Comedy Week.

The dance production In-Between, was a collaborative production between artists from the UK working alongside performers and artists from the Chinese city of Jinan. The dance choreography was developed by Janis Claxton to an original score composed by Pippa Murphy. First presented in the city of Jinan, the performance had a test presentation at Oxford House, London. Following the performance there was a talk on how the production of In-Between came together. The discussion then looked at the nature of artistic collaborations in China from both a British and Chinese understanding.

Since 2016, one of the leading documentary producers from China Central TV station has been planning the documentary shooting of Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu for the audience to discover the stories and history from those two theatre masters. Performance Infinity provided consultancy services to the producing team to shape the content and also to find the most suitable interviewees when they visited the UK.

Edinburgh Young Theatre Critic Camp aims to help young Chinese-English theatre critic learn English critic writing skills to apply to reviews written in Chinese, and furthermore help them to develop a career as a theatre critic. During Edinburgh Fringe Festival, participants see shows individually or as a group and have accomplished altogether 100 reviews. From dance to drama, children’s show to late night show, popular performances to shows created by emerging young artists. The reviews provide Chinese reader lens to a wide range of shows in Edinburgh.