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Media Release

May 19, 2006, The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts

The Centre to host 2^nd Annual Chinese Performing Arts Festival: three shows, 100 performers, 1,000 costumes, coming to Vancouver this July! 

In celebration of Canada's multi-cultural society, Sight, Sound & Action, the production house at The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts, is thrilled to announce the touring show schedule of the 2^nd Annual Chinese Performing Arts Festival.

Featuring three incredible Chinese performing arts spectacles, including the world premiere of the brand-new action-musical Tang Concubines, and the "hot new editions" of the majestic Terracotta Warriors and the romantic Of Heaven and Earth, this is a sizzling event you won’t want to miss! Shows will run from July 14 to August 6, 2006 in Vancouver before heading to the next stop of the tour.

Tang Concubines: Love, Lust, Power — Women Deciding the Fate of a Dynasty
www.tangconcubines.com
Tang Concubines portrays the lives and loves of two of the most famous women in Chinese history, who truly helped to define women's power and unprecedented sexual openness for the age during the course of the Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD). With more than a dozen palatial sets designed by one of China's most celebrated set designers, 100 world-class performers, and 600 handmade costumes from Beijing's most sought-after designer, this 2.5-million action-musical promises to be the event of this summer.

Producer Dennis Law says, "The Tang Dynasty is so important to Chinese history that Chinese people even today can be commonly referred to as 'Tang people' in the Chinese language. Part of what makes the Tang Dynasty so interesting lies in the true stories behind the two legendary concubines, Wu Zetian, who eventually became the only Empress of China throughout its thousands of years of history, and Yang Guifei, who sacrificed her life to save both the kingdom and the emperor she loved."

Through magic, martial arts, music, acrobatic, and dance performances from some of the brightest talents in China today, Tang Concubines tells the extraordinary mesmerizing tale of the rise of these two, whose notorious and celebrated lives played a major role in deciding the fate of this famous dynasty.

Terracotta Warriors: The 8^th Wonder of the World Coming to Life
www.terracottawarriors.org
Produced in 2004, Terracotta Warriors took North America by storm during its 72-performance inaugural world tour. This year, the most incredible Chinese historical facts are once again revealed on stage against a backdrop of epic sets and lavish costumes in this "hot new edition" of the largest touring Chinese show in history, as the haunting story of Qin ShiHuang, China's first emperor (crowned in 221 BC) is shown through the eyes of his beloved concubine and scheming eunuch.

Terracotta Warriors portrays the life of the arrogant, self-proclaimed Qin ShiHuang, who marked the beginning of China’s first dynasty with ruthlessness and brutality. Scholars were burned alive, concubines were both revered and tortured and, not surprisingly, assassination attempts were numerous. However, progress and innovation were also prominent, with the building of civic projects such as The Great Wall. A mere mortal, Qin became obsessed with obtaining immortality motivating him to build Mount Li, a mausoleum for his eternal life with a stone army consisting of 7,000 life-size pottery soldiers charged with protecting the tomb.

Of Heaven and Earth: The Wrath of a God, the Love of a Woman
www.ofheavenandearth.com
Of Heaven and Earth was created in 2002 in light of the growing need for something new on the Broadway scene. Under the art direction and costume design of Tim Yip (winner of the 2001 Academy Award for Art Direction for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), the new edition of this action-musical will introduce Western audiences to a stunning new genre of live-stage entertainment by combining the grand scale of a Broadway production with the ancient traditions of Chinese dance, music and martial arts.

Extravagant costumes and futuristic stage design, uncharacteristic of Chinese musical theatre, combine to create an original theatrical experience for the audience. Of Heaven and Earth was the first action-musical that paved the way for Sight, Sound & Action to help invent the future of Chinese musical theatre for the international arena. This re-arrangement of a thousand years of tradition Chinese performing arts for use in musical live theatre to showcase the beauty of the human form was indeed unprecedented.

The 2^nd Annual Chinese Performing Arts Festival North American tour begins in Vancouver, B.C. on July 14, 2006 at The Centre, and continues on to: Mississauga, ON (August), North York, ON (August/September), Montréal, QC (September), Cerritos, CA (September), Cupertino (September), Oakland (September/October), and San Francisco (October).

Performances at The Centre will be from July 14 to August 6, 2006. Festival passes to all three shows and single tickets are now on sale at Centretix and MAL Audio's Richmond #3 Road and Chinatown locations. Please call toll-free 1-888-221-3888 or go to www.centretix.com for more information. For show information, visit www.cpaf.ca.

The 1^st Annual Chinese Performing Arts Festival was launched in May 2005 and featured the song-and-dance concert Senses and the percussion-based action-musical Heartbeat (120 performances in total) in Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Connie Lee, marketing, Sight, Sound & Action
Phone: 604-699-2308
E-mail: clee@centreinvancouver.com

This release with pictures can also be downloaded from www.cpaf.ca/cpaf/pr060518_cpaf.pdf.

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