Best bets

Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty - A Gothic Romance

Date: Aug 27-28 - 7:15 pm

Venue: Shanghai Culture Square

Price: 80-880 yuan

In 2014, Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake had made a sensational effect so that the audiences in Shanghai remember Matthew Bourne's name deeply. Sleeping Beauty is his new great production. This dazzling production has won the hearts of thousands and smashed box office records across the UK and the USA since its premiere. Don't miss this unique chance to experience a gothic romance - after Aurora Princess's reawakens from a century long slumber, Aurora finds herself in the modern day. It is a gothic romance for all ages and also a world more mysterious than any Fairy story.

Compagnie Marie Chouinard In Shanghai

Date: Sept 2-3 - 7:30 pm

Venue: Shanghai Daning Theater

Price: 80-680 yuan

The international reputation of the Compagnie Marie Chouinard is the result of twenty-eight years of work by Montreal artist Marie Chouinard. Now a fixture on the world's major stages and festivals, the company has its roots in Chouinard's first creation in 1978, the solo Crystallization. This piece, which immediately earned her a reputation for originality, was followed by over fifty choreographic productions, action-performances, vocal works, installations and films, in which she refined her lifelong interest in formal research and the human body. From 1978 to 1990, Marie Chouinard performed alone throughout the world, developing a personal language with a universal resonance.

2016 MTA Festival

Date: Sept 3-4 - 10 am

Venue: Sky Desert Natural Scenic Area

Price: 600-800 yuan

The newly launched Chinese music festival, MTA Festival is stepping into the league of SXSW and Coachella, making a unique Chinese cultural symbol and emerging global music festival brand under the desert stars, 90 km from Beijing at Sky Desert. The Festival is a collection of trending music, the experience of emerging technology, multimedia art performances, installation art exhibitions and much more. With their amazing spirit, artists will transform the desert into a new galaxy, creating a dreamy experience of antigravity, surrounded by nine "planets".

2016 Longines Beijing Masters

Date: Sept 3-4 - 10 am

Venue: National Stadium

Price: 50-5,800 yuan

The three-day 2016 Longines Beijing Masters will involve four classes - Challenge Class 100-110 centimeters, Team Championship Class 115-125 centimeters, BMW Elite Class 130-135 centimeters and Longines Grand Prix 140-150 centimeters. Each class will engage more than 140 of China's finest show-jumping horses worth more than 100 million yuan ($15 million). There will be about 100 professional housekeepers taking care of the horses in temporary tents covering over 6,000 square meters. The course routes are designed by Frank Rosenberg, an international four-star (highest level) course designer who was part of the design of show-jumping routes for the Olympic Games and many spectacular international events.

Whales, Stories of Giants - Hypermedia Dance Performance

Date: Sept 2-4 - 7:30 pm

Venue: Fulong Theater, Shanghai

Price: 80-800 yuan

For its creators, located in different countries and interdisciplinary training, it's about to eliminate geographical and temporary barriers (the journey of the whales is ancestral and goes from Baja California to the southern seas) but also the boundaries between fact and fiction thanks to the incorporation of new technologies, especially in stereoscopic 3D projections, which make this a show especially appealing to children and other "digital" audience. "Whales, stories of giants" is a single story divided into four acts. The myths of the various geographies, Baja California and Chile, are intertwined, and so are the elements common to all humans, finally in the same world, with its seas and whales in mating ceremonies, and their deserts that speak of death as a part of evolution.

Chinese Traditional Chamber Concert

Date: Sept 4 - 2 pm

Venue: Shanghai Concert Hall

Price: 80-100 yuan

Traditional Chinese Chamber Concert is a brand-new series created for Shanghai Concert Hall 2015-16 season. Bearing the mission to promote Chinese folk music, the series features exquisite solo, duet, and trio concerts of erhu, bamboo flute, guzheng and other Chinese instruments, along with a rare exhibition of traditional Chinese instruments. Starting this season, Traditional Chinese Chamber Concert takes place every first Sunday of the month at Shanghai Concert Hall, showcasing the elegance of Chinese folk music.

(China Daily 08/27/2016 page20)