A play about the Belt and Road Initiative opens student art festival in Beijing

Young audiences watch a play titled "An Answer Sheet in the Future" on Wednesday afternoon, Nov 14, 2018 at the opening ceremony of Beijing's annual Student Art Festival.[Photo provided to China Plus]

Beijing's annual Student Art Festival opened on Wednesday afternoon with a play titled "An Answer Sheet for the Future" or Shi Kong Da Ti Ka (时空答题卡)in Chinese.

The young performers all come from the Beijing Chen Jing Lun High School.

Mu Chengmei, the school's headmaster, said: "The musical interweaves the vocal performance into this children's play. When we wrote it, we set the story to happen in 2030 at a time of China's new wave of modernization driven by the Belt and Road Initiative. This play is hoped to provoke educators' thinking of what lessons or classes should be included in the curriculum for our students to study at school."

Some of the young performers found the play a little challenging. Li Tianqi is a student performer. He thinks it's a bit difficult for him to understand his role in the play as a 38-year old man who has accomplished nothing. He added since he's still young, he couldn't understand how his education didn't help the man in pursuing a career.

A play titled "An Answer Sheet in the Future" performed on Wednesday afternoon, Nov 14, 2018 at the opening ceremony of Beijing's annual Student Art Festival.[Photo provided to China Plus]

Starting from Wednesday, students from 24 learning institutions, including universities, middle and primary schools, as well as kindergartens in Beijing and neighboring Tianjin municipality and Hebei province, will perform onstage at the China National Theatre for Children.

Yin Xiaodong is the head of the theatre. He explains how his theatre is involved in the ongoing festival.

"Staff with our theatre have frequently been to the schools giving assistance in their drama education. We hope to share our experiences. Meanwhile, students also wish to have a platform where they want to show their achievements in arts education. This provides us an excellent opportunity to connect this year's Exhibition of Educational Achievements in Youth Drama with the Beijing's 21st Student Art Festival."

Beijing's 21st Student Art Festival, or the 2018 Exhibition of Educational Achievements in Youth Drama, will be held from November 14th to the 29th.

The Beijing Municipal Education Commission began a program to include institutions of higher education and social organizations in middle and primary students' aesthetic education in 2014.

Beijing's 21st Student Art Festival, or the 2018 Exhibition of Educational Achievements in Youth Drama opened in Beijing on Wednesday afternoon, Nov 14, 2018.[Photo provided to China Plus]