The award-winning martial arts troupe of the Capital University of Physical Education and Sports Beijing impressed an audience of more than 400 guests with its performance of `Beauty of Chinese Martial Arts’.
The event was organised by the Liverpool Confucius Institute to promote Chinese culture through martial arts, a popular culture with western audiences and the audience included school children, students, staff and members of the public.
The martial art troupe is composed of students of Martial Arts & Chinese Traditional Sports and Art Performance at Capital University, many of whom are national and international champions of various styles of martial art.
Juan Shao, a teacher from Wade Deacon school in Widnes, said ‘It was an excellent way to promote Chinese culture to school children.”
Other schools who attended included Litherland High School, St Francis de Sales, Carmel College, Liverpool College, Upton Hall and Ormiston Chadwick Academy.
Dr Tian Peng, Deputy Director of the Confucius Institute China said “The performance explained to the audience how the Chinese Martial Arts originated and developed in the form of choreography, and I am very pleased to see that the audience enjoyed it so much, in particular the students.
In the interactive part, so many of them rushed to the stage and they had to be arranged in two shifts. Their smiling faces suggest that it can be a very happy thing to experience another culture.”
Dr Wang Shangzhong, Vice President of the University of Physical Education & Sports Beijing said ‘Martial Arts is a shared culture between the west and Asia however there is a misconception of how the west interprets martials arts – it is more than a form of self-defence.
“In China it is on the one hand a performance, a form of exercise and expression and on the other a competitive sport similar to boxing’.
Further images from the performance can be found at the Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.871268202928756.1073741846.414382555283992&type=3