Bachelor's degree with a double major in Chinese and Art in Peking University. Master of Art and Administration in New York University. She has served in the Macao Cultural Affairs Bureau, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Museum of Chinese in America, working as art administrator and curator. She is now working as an art educator and administrator in New York, as well as an independent curator and writer.
Performing arts for children and teenagers—Segmentation of the performing arts industry
For many art centres and communities, children and teenagers are the main audiences of performing arts in the U.S. This is the reason why it is not uncommon to see segmentation of the performing arts industry happening in places where the industry is rather mature. Performing arts show is also an important part of the country’s cultural export. Every year, International Performing Arts for the Youth (IPAY) is held in the U.S. to promote performing arts shows that are recommended by the event and provide a platform for exchange.
This year, I visited IPAY for the second time. And I wish to share some of my observation there through this piece of article.
International exchange
IPAY is an international organisation that aims to build a platform for showcasing performing arts for young audiences and professional exchange. Its members include performing arts artists and organisations from around the world, venue partners, art festival organisers, performing arts agents, etc. Currently, IPAY members are mostly from America and Europe. In recent years, Korean agencies have been importing quite a number of quality performances from IPAY. More art venue representatives from Mainland China, on the other hand, are also coming to IPAY to look for good shows. It is without a doubt that the art communities from Asia are recognising the importance of IPAY.
Korean performance at IPAY—Doddle POP by Brush Theatre
Photo courtesy of IPAY official website
IPAY is held in Philadelphia at the beginning of every year. The intensive one-week event will showcase tens of quality performing arts performances, which will be shown through showcase exchange, show recommendations and selected parts of performances or full performances. For art venues that feature performing arts, IPAY is an important opportunity for them to purchase and import performances. This year’s IPAY attracted nearly 500 participants, including internationally recognised performing arts venues like New York’s Lincoln Centre, Washington’s Kennedy Centre, etc. Many American artists see IPAY as a great annual gathering opportunity because IPAY enables closer exchange between the participants when compared with other major performing arts trading platform. This allowed young industry workers like me to understand the operation, culture and trends in the performing arts industry in the U.S. more.
Cultural export
As an international performing arts platform for exchange and trade, IPAY is also a place where countries traditionally strong in exporting their culture and emerging newcomers to compete with each other. You can not only see independent artists and groups at IPAY but also representatives of state governments. Canada Council for the Arts, for example, is one of the main sponsors of IPAY since its founding. The governments of Scotland, the Netherlands, Australia, etc. have also been the showcase and exchange activity sponsors for IPAY. It is apparent that western countries think highly of this event. As more Asian artists start to participate in IPAY, the event will be able to show more diversity in the development of performing arts around the world.
Different from previous years, this year’s IPAY had a new session called FITA CHILE, which showcased performances from the Chile representatives in one day. FITA CHILE was originally an art performance trading platform in Chile but it got cancelled in late 2019 because of the political instability in the country. Luckily, some of the performances were able to happen at IPAY. A representative from Chile mentioned in her remark that she was the only artist from Chile to attend IPAY when she was here for the first time three years ago. To her surprise, she was able to get both the Chile government and art community to attend IPAY together, which allowed the U.S. and art communities from different parts of the world to see quality works from Chile. I couldn’t help but think that perhaps Macao’s art community, which is trying to expand to overseas markets in recent years, could make use of platforms like IPAY to go international. But of course, it is important to understand the targeted market and relevant operation well when exporting cultural products. I will make a further discussion on this point in my next article.
