Jian Xue International Education and Culture Institute

The opening week of Them Next Door has felt like an important beginning, not only as a launch of an exciting project in the UK, after it's testing run in Shenzhen and Beijing, but as the beginning of a conversation with audiences from the diaspora communities. The responses suggest a grow curiosity around the themes of diasporic theatre for communities.

The local elections this week in the UK seem to reflect the emergence of a new political landscape, and voices through our production shed light on the anxieties, contradictions and the extremity of living in our times, where young people have to navigate within an increasingly polarized society.

We are moved by how many young audiences have shared experiences that resonate closely with the story - the encounter between a young Chinese person and an old British man, in 2026. The play opens up conversations around personal memories, migration, grieving, languages and the feelings of living between cultures and generations. What has felt especially meaningful is the way audiences have remained after performance to continue these conversations together. The play and the site of the play become a communal meeting point where deepened dialogues and connections are made.

Looking ahead, we are looking forward to more touring of this version and look forward to seeing you on the road!

"Jian Xue's workshops always offer a sense of serendipity. Time slows down and gaps open up, and we reconnect with ourselves and others, and feel thoughtfully". Thanks to those who participated the 2026 AWOP workshop in Shanghai. See you again this autumn with another AWOP workshop.

Them Next Door, a new diaspora project, in collaboration with Blindspot, is coming to Manchester. Please see how to sign up in the link.

Them Next Door | Contact Theatre A block of flats in a city. Today. Two neighbours cross in silence in the stairwell.They both know who the other is, but they do not know who they are: th

2026 AWOP special opens for recruitment. Chris Cooper will host a 6 hour public workshop and a talk in Shanghai, following his teaching at Shanghai Theatre Academy. Join us from WeChat post to sign up for:

Civil Blood Makes Civil Hands Unclean: Felt understanding and Contemporary drama and theatre in education.

The talk and workshop will be based on Romeo & Juliet, a new TIE programme, being developed for Chris' summer school programme, 2026. More details on Jian Xue's WeChat account!

Join Trinity College Dublin for celebrating Cecily O'Neill's extraordinary legacy in drama education! School of Education, TCD REGISTER NOW! https://tinyurl.com/imagined-worlds for WeChat followers, Chinese info on the way.

2025 was the year of TiE@60. A year of highs to be celebrated. It was also a synthesis of the new and the old, in our summer schools, our biennial conference Voices that Refuse to Disappear, our exhibition, our Weekend of Practice (AWOP) and the theatre we created. Exhilarating days indeed.

Our commitment to the art from of TiE and drama education was most evident in the theatre that we made. Jian Xue was proud to create and support three TiE productions: The Real Story of Ah-Q; Bone-Cage and Them Next Door, as well as a new play for children aged 7-9 y.o. in China.

In the autumn of 2025 we created Project 61 a competition to create a new TiE programme with a view to the development of the field in the sixty-first year of TiE. Stick & Wood (Beijing) was the winner, the team securing funding from Jian Xue to create a TiE production. Jian Xue is also providing consultative support for the runners-up, XiaoPi and Pino (Hangzhou) and Space (Shenzhen) . All of this exciting work has come out of the TiE & DiE community that we have built together over the past 15 years.

This year, we have also honored Li Yingning's contribution to the filed of drama and theatre in education in China with Li Yingning Award 2025, which we are working hard to turn it into a funding opportunity for practitioners in Chinese speaking worlds.

We have just finished touring our exhibition : Look Back in Anger: Theatre in Education 60. The exhibition, which showcases 10 programmes between 1965 and 2025, with rare videos and detailed records of programmes and activities, from across Europe, Asia, and North America, ends it's nationwide tour in Chongqing, China, following touring in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.

There is still a lot more work to do. But thanks to the old, to the voices from the past and present who have been part of the development of the international TiE movement that continue to refuse to disappear or be disappeared - we stand on the shoulders of those went before us.

And because of the new, the community we have all built together through our Summer Schools, training, publications and now our TiE practice, we have much to look forward to.

Bone-Cage starts its new run in Beijing this weekend, and Them Next Door, will be touring in the UK, in 2026. We will continue to develop DiE practice too through our summer schools and training, SITE A # webinar, events, conferences, etc. We know that times are hard and it is a daily struggle to practice as art-educators and attend to the needs of those we a driven to nurture, the young. But we also need to know, to feel in our bones, that our community is strong. Together we can build a future for Jian Xue shaped by our praxis. This can be determined by each one of us, old and new, and also perhaps, by active the participation of our community in as yet undetermined and surprising ways.

I thank you all for 2025, and wish you all the very best for 2026.

Chris & Cao Xi

Series of workshops @ AWOP Shenzhen that ends the TIE 60 - a year long celebration of Theatre in Education. A Weekend of Practice is organised by Jian Xue as an annual practitioner community. Experienced teachers are gathered in Shenzhen on the last weekend of November to explore authentic teaching. Cao Xi and Chris Cooper performed the full programme of JX's new TIE - Them Next Door, which is going on an exciting tour in the UK in 2026! Season greetings to everyone who participated our summer school, conference, AWOP, Ah-Q, Bone-Cage and meetings this year! See you all in 2026!

SITE A #26 will announce the first Li Yinnging Drama and Education Award, dedicated to Project 61, which is a competition of new TIE programmes that celebrates the 60th years since the birth of the art form. We have received 9 exciting projects since August. It's extremely encouraging to see so many TIE ready cities in mainland China. We have organised a panel of experts and young people to review all projects and will share the results of the award tomorrow at our SITE A event. Hope to see you there.

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Szeretnénk elérni a 1.500.000 Ft.-ot, ez komoly segítség lenne És, ti...? című új részvételi színházi előadásunk létrehozásához. Ez a stábfotó a tegnapi tesztjáték előtt készült. Hétfőn bemutató, dupla előadás középiskolásoknak. November 18-án felnőtt előadás a MU Színházban. ITT ÉRHETŐ EL A KAMPÁNY, ITT TUDSZ TÁMOGATNI BENNÜNKET: https://adjukossze.hu/adomanygyujtes/3972

A Week of Practice 2025 is arriving in Shenzhen this year! JX's both directors Cao Xi and Chris Cooper will host a series of workshops, talks, discussions around the theme of 'The Frustration of (drama/theatre in) Education". For details, please see below WeChat link. See you in November!

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/BgAA7ChCvbq9v5ILFmq3Ig

Look Back in Anger: 60 Years of Theatre in Education is an exhibition born out of the TIE 60 Conference held in Beijing this Summer. The exhibition has been traveling through three different cities in China since and now the Hangzhou exhibition is finishing in a week. Accompanying both end of exhibition in Beijing and Hangzhou, JX will tour Bone-cage again in both cities . Next stop - Shenzhen!