It’s hip to be square – free public square dancing available in Chinatown through China Exchange & Southbank Centre
Londoners will get a taste of China’s square dancing craze through a new project “Square Dancing: How do you guangchang wu?” led by China Exchange in partnership with Southbank Centre as part of the China Changing festival.
From Shore to Shore 漂洋过海
In two sold-out performances at China Exchange, the stories of three families were brought to life through From Shore to Shore. The well-crafted script, performed in English, Cantonese and Mandarin, was written by award-winning writer, Mary Cooper, with multilingual collaborator, M.W. Sun. It drew upon the life stories from Chinese interviewees living in the UK and their experiences were crafted into a powerful drama, […]
China in Context
China in Context, the first dedicated celebration of Chinese writers and writing in the UK, welcomed over 750 visitors to China Exchange for a very bookish weekend. Activities included a book fair that allowed visitors to see the range of titles available; free family shadow puppet making sessions with Hatching Dragon’s, the UK’s first […]
Woodblock Printing Demonstration & Workshop
In this intimate workshop, attendees were introduced to this ancient craft by award-winning artist Dr Weimin He and the Muban Educational Trust. Dr He demonstrated his unique printing method and delighted us by creating a beautiful woodblock portrait of one of the attendees over the course of the session. Attendees then put their new […]
Dance with Mulan: free dance workshop
A wonderful group of audience spent their evening at China Exchange to learn about Chinese dance with The Hong Kong Dance Company on 12 April. Ahead of the premiere of The Legend of Mulan at South Bank Centre on 15th May, this award-winning dance company brought a fantastic team of artists demonstrated Chinese Classical dance and Chinese folk dance to the audience, which are the main component of the Mulan […]
Belonging in Beijing: LGBTQIA in China
Dr Trude Sandberg joined us for Belonging in Beijing, an evening focused on her experiences of co-creating Q-space, a centre for the LGBTQIA community in China’s capital. She shared stories that reflected how mainstream Chinese society, which emphasises the importance of heterosexual marriage, meeting family obligation and producing children, and the complexities this creates […]
Chinese New Year 2017
We celebrated Chinese New Year at China Exchange with a variety of events throughout the Spring Festival from 19 January to 11 February. We kicked off our Chinese New Year programme with the inspiring Creating a Productive Space in Your Life workshop. It was a night of science, spirituality and fengshui leaving the audience […]
Lantern Festival Screening: London’s CNY Documentaries
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9_vtQvZg5w&t=6s In a vibrant finalé to the China Exchange Chinese New Year celebrations, a curious crowd joined us for a special lantern festival screening of the short documentaries made in our Doc-in-a-Day challenge with London Documentary Network. Film-makers – some very experienced, some totally new to the game – had just 36 hours to create […]
Pure Land Series: An Evening with Mona Golabek
“My mother always told me that music tells a story; you simply have to discover what that story is”. Pianist, writer, radio host and performer, Mona Golabek intertwined music and stories to guide the Pure Land Series audience on a gripping, emotional and uplifting journey of discovery in a special evening at China Exchange. […]
丝竹报春 – Silk and Bamboo: Music for the arrival of Spring
The Silk and Bamboo concert we co-hosted with the UK Chinese Music Ensemble attracted 100 enthusiastic audience on 9th February. Two renowned musicians, Dr Cheng Yu and Liu Menglin performed a well-selected list of classical Chinese music. Dr Cheng Yu is specialised in guqin 古琴 (seven-stringed zither) and the pipa 琵琶 (four-stringed lute) and talented Liu Menglin played the hulusi 葫芦丝 (a gourd flute); and the […]