Acrobats take culture on the road in South America

The Shenyang Acrobatic Troupe began a tour focusing on the image of the panda in South America last month, and it has proven popular among local spectators.

Zhou Zhongtao, leader of the performance tour, said: "When we performed in Brazil, we could feel the enthusiasm of the country's audience every day."

The tour's first show took place in a large theater in Brazil on the evening of April 6. There will be about 120 performances of the show in the next six months in South America. Nearly 300,000 spectators are expected to watch the show.

The show's theme of "promoting good", as advocated by the Chinese people, is expressed through a panda, the Chinese cultural symbol with wide recognition overseas, in its leading role. It comprises traditional acrobatics, kung fu and magic shows.

When the troupe first created the show, they targeted the international performance market and wanted to promote the market value of Chinese acrobatics by establishing a Chinese brand.

The creators of the show have been thinking on how to effectively tell overseas spectators Chinese stories with pandas. They used interesting stories to reveal pandas' kindness, mildness, outstanding endurance and wisdom.

To make the show more attractive to overseas audiences, creators made some adjustments. The voice-over of the show was transcribed into Spanish and Portuguese to ensure South American spectators could more easily understand the performance.

The Shenyang troupe said it has an important task in the tour of South America - promoting Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province.

The show featured a promotional video before the performance in the big theater in Brazil. The video displays Shenyang's natural scenery, rich culture, modernized construction and colorful social life.

Liaoning province has maintained a friendly relationship with the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro for nearly a decade, while Shenyang has made La Plata City in Argentina its sister city. The tour of performances in South America is an important opportunity to promote the image of Shenyang, representatives from the troupe said.

The troupe was set up in 1951 and more than 20 of the troupe's shows have been awarded important prizes in domestic and international acrobatic competitions. It has visited, participated in matches and offered performances in more than 200 cities from more than 60 countries and regions.

The Shenyang troupe performs acrobatics. Provided to China Daily

Actors perform wearing costumes of pandas and characters from fairy tales. Provided to China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 05/19/2017 page16)