Cinema connects rural kids with art

Making an effort to cultivate teachers and improve the basic education ecosystem, an annual project that uses movies as art education tools in rural areas recently made its first stop in Southwest China's Yunnan province.

The project, titled "Taking Movies to the Countryside", is jointly organized by Beijing Normal University and the China Film Archive.

On July 18, a performance showcasing how the project has benefited local students was held at Qiubei Middle School, affiliated with Yunnan Normal University, in Wenshan Zhuang and Miao autonomous prefecture.

Chen Gang, deputy dean of the School of Arts and Communication at Beijing Normal University, said the project, which was launched in 2022, has, for the first time, introduced a new class format featuring prestigious scholars delivering art lectures, with the university's professor Yu Dan as this year's speaker.

Besides, students and teachers from the university choreographed The Story of a Bird, a dance drama inspired by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's short story The Parrot's Training. With combining movement and storytelling to convey its message, the drama was designed to help children in remote areas gain a deeper and more intuitive understanding of art.

Yu, who also serves as the head of the Beijing Institute of Cultural Innovation and Communication, said that these artistic workshops and performances have awakened the children's innate creativity, healed their hearts, and allowed them to discover dreams within the interplay of light, shadow and art.

A teacher coaches a student during an art class, as part of the annual project.