In cold days of winter, a fireplace shared with friends is the most welcoming sight. The 2022 Beijing Forum for Performing Arts will soon begin, when members of the performing arts community all over the world would gather around this virtual “fireplace”, talking about friendship and future. There is no distance too great between people with shared mind and aspiration. Despite the mountains and seas separating us, we are closely connected by our common concern for the future of the performing arts. On behalf of the BFPA and China National Centre for the Performing Arts, I would like to extend warm welcome and express our heartfelt gratitude to all friends, old and new, attending this year’s forum.

As mankind’s precious cultural treasure, performing arts rely on tradition and innovation to stay alive. As China’s top tier performing arts organisation, the NCPA has always valued inspiration, preservation, innovation, openness and inclusiveness. Drawing from artistic masterpieces and exemplars both home and abroad, we have furthered innovations on multiple levels including creativity, operation, promotion and management and gained considerable successes on various aspects such as online performance series, smart organisation management, digital platform and technological empowerment, accumulating precious experiences in broadening the industry’s scope of development during the process. Not long ago, I led a delegation on a visit to Switzerland, Austria and Germany, engaged with 17 arts organisations, 10 renowned agencies and 4 world-famous artists in an effort to further mutual understanding and enhance friendship.

With the ongoing pandemic and great changes in the world not seen in a hundred years, tackling the imminent challenges and drawing inexhaustible momentum from tradition and innovation have become common and pressing problems facing our community. As the standing exchange platform under the framework of the BFPA, the 2022 Beijing Forum for the Performing Arts is themed “Revitalizing the Performing Arts: Tradition and Innovation”. This year’s forum will focus on new cases of efforts made to facilitate the development of the industry, promote trailblazing concepts that stimulate creativity, and provide momentum for further communications between Chinese and international organisations and the future of performing arts around the globe. Accompanying this year’s event, there will also be the Taihu International Stage Art Forum. We have invited a multitude of renowned stage designers and experts to share their newest ideas in diversified expression and jointly explore new possibilities for stage art.

There is an old saying in China that “when people pull together, nothing is too heavy to be lifted.” The realm of performing arts is our spiritual homeland, a realm that we truly love and will spare no efforts to make it ever more beautiful. The NCPA is willing to share its fate with the performing arts community, strive together for a bright future and make its due contribution to the preservation of culture and progress of civilisation.

We thank China Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality for their close attention and generous support to our event. And we also thank you, our honoured guests, for your support and contribution. I hope we will all benefit from the sharing of opinions and joint exploration.

I wish this year’s forum a complete success!