Coordinating the local programs for this year’s Dashanzi International Arts Festival was exhausting work, because at this time we still lack experience doing this kind of project in this kind of environment. Trying our best nevertheless, no matter how difficult or cumbersome, we feel we must start from somewhere to present independent theater performances that swim against the current and the marketplace. So I’m not so much of the “curator,” as I am someone who merely contacted a few individuals and companies whom I know or those who others introduced to me, and from these performers I put together this program.
We are lucky to have the confidence of the Dashanzi International Arts Festival, as well as the support of Storm Exhibition and Advertisement Company and 798 Space, to make this program possible. Planning the schedule of performances required the trust and cooperation of numerous independent performing companies and individuals, among them Stichting DOEN, Dineke Koerts and Constance Vos from Borono of the Netherlands, and the efforts of all of our colleagues. Thanks to everyone’s work, those who over the years have been hidden from public view can at long last emerge on center stage.