Danish Cultural Institute China

Povl Dissing's unique voice is no more. May he rest in peace.

In Beijing we still owe him garlands of flowers for his remarkable concerts with Benny Andersen 12 years ago when he performed a catalogue of Andersen songs with local electronica maestros, 痴人, including of course 'Månen over Yangtzekiang'. Dissing was a delightful, gentle and generous acquaintance - he will remain a sweet memory for those of us involved in the four concerts.

Biodiversity is key to the stability of the ecosystems we rely on for food, arable land, clean air and water. Losing species is the same as taking bricks out of wall, one by one - eventually, the wall will collapse, the ecosystem will die. For almost nine months we have raised awareness of this gigantic challenge with a tailor-made program that engages Chinese people the depths of nature so as to help reverse the ongoing deterioration of biodiversity. China is particularly vulnerable as it ranks 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟰 among countries with highest biodiversity (after Brazil, Indonesia and Colombia) and is 𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝟭𝟬% 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟭𝟰% 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 despite only covering 6.3% of the total landmass. 



Combining exhibition and talks on ‘Born to Be Wild’ we reached audiences in six cities and, we believe, guided them to the wonders of wildlife and biospheres. Today in Guangzhou, we say goodbye to its impressive content by three multi-award-winning Nordic wildlife photographers, Audun Rikardson (Norway), Staffan Widstrand (Sweden), and Mogens Trolle (Denmark) and celebrated local photographer Xi Zhinong.

Hopefully, we made some kind of impact.

For the third month running, our Peace Poster exhibition continues to attract people.

Beijingers are not different from others, they cherish peace like you and me so we have invited our guests to write their personal reflection on the war. Lots of supporting messages to people in Ukraine.

As impressive as the posters on our walls.

The distance between Beijing and Mongolia's Ulaan Baatar, is roughly similar to that of Beijing-Shanghai but speaking of cultural facilities the differences between the two capitals are quite tangible. Last week, the EU Delegation to Mongolia asked us to show some extracts from our Peace exhibition as part of EUrope Day to convey the important message of universal peace to a country whose energy supplies are provided by the big country to the north and west of Mongolia, and what is more ample to address such issue than speaking with a cultural tongue.

We ended up in a tent - unfortunately not a a real yurt though - in Sükhbataar Square in front of the parliament. Do like the Romans when you are in Rome.

Together with some 30 mostly Shanghai based cultural partners Danish Cultural Institute in China is organizing a large international festival of inclusive culture for next autumn. DAWA (Diverse As We Are) is presumably the first of its kind in China that embraces diversity, social inclusion and equal participation so it makes a lot of sense to launch it today, on World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. Preparations for the festival have been under way for almost a year but what a way to celebrate that Shanghai is gradually resuming real life.



https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/1puD3-Y-_0ZG5-JsNZ1Hvw

Hans Christian Andersen continues to be a big hit in China thanks to the HCA Museum in Odense doing a great job.

Last month, we had the great pleasure of opening an exhibition on his papercuts (with original artefacts on loan from Odense) @ Xi'an Museum. Lots of people attended the event.

This coming Tuesday, we'll be present in Guangzhou for another similar occasion. Not to mention Qingdao and Hangzhou next January, Nanjing in March and Dalian in May.

Last weekend, we invited Danish ArtLab to the DongDong Festival in Beijing to conduct some workshops about personal entrepreneurship for indie musicians.

The first workshop had the topic of managing our own career as a freelances musician. The participants were young musicians, music students and upcoming bands. ArtLab coach Karen Abrahamsen introduced an entrepreneurial model which helped them working on it on the spot. Together they started mapping their activities as musicians, getting new ideas about how to cover new areas of self-management, sales and booking.

For the second workshop, Torben Eik gave an introduction to the new media landscape and how it has affected the way you as a musician work with marketing and networking in a social media context. After that, the participants worked on making an online strategy for a given case study.

In the third workshop, Kristian Koch held a masterclass at the Dusk Dawn Club for 15 local musicians/bands about how to boost your live-act. Through numerous examples he showed how awareness of your physical presence on stage it vital for the effect you have on a live audience.

Great event, big success to be repeated next year.

Shenzhen, Wuhan, Shanghai and yesterday Beijing: CALLmeKat has finished her first tour in China. A big triumf for this remarkable singer/songwriter, whom we are very proud to have invited.

Saturday's concert in Beijing's Yugong Yishan was top-notch amazing with two encores - a rarity in this city.