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Missoula-Beijing Cultural Project

Through a partnership between the Missoula Children's Theater (MCT) and the China National Theatre for Children (CNTC), nine Missoula high school students who are studying Mandarin will perform at the China Children’s Theatre Festival in July, 2016.

The participants are Benjamin Blackwell, Nathan Dudden, Kade Hedahl, Oliver Chinn, Angel Frisbie, Chance Leuphold, Quois Farnum Clark, Noah George, and Henry Wright.

The students will spend a few weeks working in Missoula with award-winning director Yang Cheung from Beijing to learn three performances in Mandarin based on Chinese folk tales.  

In July the students will travel to China with MCT and Confucius Institute chaperones.  They will spend the first week in Beijing preparing for and performing at the festival.  While in Beijing, the students will be hosted by the CNTC who will take care of all of their expenses, including housing and food.   

The second week, the students will tour China with Suhan Chen of the Confucius Institute at the Mansfield Center and engage in language and cultural activities.

This project is part of an ongoing partnership between MCT and the CNTC and is an incredible and totally unique opportunity for our local students.  

In July 2015, the CNTC invited two MCT tour actor directors to teach 50 local children in Beijing to perform MCT’s Princess and the Pea in English.  The festival coordinators and the more than 2,100 audience members were blown away.  While there are many opportunities for children in China to watch performing arts there are few, if any, for them to actually participate.  The CNTC had never seen anything like MCT.  They were so impressed that they are eager to continue our partnership.   

The next opportunity is the one described above that will take place in July.  Plans are also underway for October, 2016, when half of the children cast in the Beijing production of Princess and the Pea will travel to Missoula and team up with Missoula children to perform for Missoula audiences.  

Our hope is that this investment now will result in MCT sending a tour team to travel to remote villages across China in the future.  This is a huge opportunity for MCT, Missoula and for the state of Montana, not to mention, the thousands of children in China who will have their first opportunity to participate in the performing arts. 

The money raised by this effort will go towards the personal expenses incurred by the students and their families.  The total per person comes to about $2000.00 USD, including roundtrip airfare from Missoula, passports, visas, and fees.  Donated funds will go to the Missoula Children's Theater and distributed amongst participants  based on primarily on financial need.

For further information feel free to contact myself (Keith Blackwell - one of the parents), Cate Sundeed at the Missoula Children's Theater (http://mctinc.org/contact/) or Suhan Chen at the Confucius Institute at The University Of Montana (http://www.umt.edu/mansfield/ci/About%20Us/contact.php)



Thank you so much for your support!

Organizer

Keith Blackwell
Organizer
Missoula, MT

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