The Russian Cultural Festival, an annual event featuring cultural exchanges between China and Russia, kicked off in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Xi'an and other cities across the country on Tuesday.
Co-hosted by China's Ministry of Culture, the Russian Ministry of Culture and the Russian Embassy in China, this year's event boasts a total of 51 performances including music, dance and opera.
To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, a stage play involving more than 200 performers from China and Russia was held at the Beijing Comedy Theater Wednesday - the largest performance ever co-organized by the ministries of the two countries.
According to Zhang Shuxin from the China Arts and Entertainment Group, which helped organize the event, this year's festival will provide Chinese audiences the opportunity to experience contemporary Russian art, as well as help promote cultural exchanges and communication between young talents from both countries.
Besides the festival's annual Stage Art Dialogue that has taken place every year since 2011, this year's festival boasts additional performances in which one side interprets the culture of the other.
For example, Russia will interpret the Chinese opera classic The Peony Pavilion in the style of a traditional Olonkho epic, while the Northern Kunqu Opera Theater will adapt a Yakut heroic epic to Kunqu Opera.
"Two world cultural heritages from the two countries will be performed on one stage. We are very excited," Cao Ying, vice president of the Northern Kunqu Opera Theater, told the Global Times at the press conference Tuesday.
As neighboring countries, China and Russia have held similar cultural festivals in each other's countries since the 1990s.
