At the center of the world stage

In correspondence to the governmental report, An says that Beijing has a strong market foundation and a leading edge in China's performing arts industry, in that it has the largest number of performing arts groups among China's major cities, and ranks highly in terms of both number of theaters and audience sizes.

"Government figures show that before 2020, excluding the movie box office, Beijing had around 24,000 commercial performances each year, nearly 70 performances a day. These performances have attracted more than 10 million audience members and generated over 1.7 billion yuan ($245 million) in revenue," he says.

"We should take advantage of the upcoming recovery in international exchanges, and offer favorable incentives and policies to attract high-quality cultural performances and movies from around the world to host their China premieres in Beijing in order to further expand the capital city's influence as a cultural hub."

An says that such events will not only provide an impetus to the cultural industries, but also help promote the development of the peripheral industries, boosting consumption with regard to the production's merchandise and the city's cultural landmarks.

An also advocates bringing performances out of the traditional theaters and opening up new creative venues, echoing the concept of "new performing arts spaces" put forth in 2019 by Shanghai Performance Trade Association.

Differentiating from large or medium-sized professional theaters, these spaces refer to public cultural venues located within urban areas suitable for hosting performances, to match the growing demand and increasingly innovative formats of productions.

He says that, although this practice has proved favorable in a few cities, national-level laws and regulations as well as industry standards are yet to be determined.

Furthermore, Chinese cities should offer support to performing arts organizations in using former industrial sites, old factories, shopping malls and office buildings, among others, as spaces for artistic creation and performances.

"Social forces should be introduced to build and operate these spaces, and companies operating these spaces should be encouraged to participate in artistic creation and invest in performing arts," he says.