After 19 years of ignorance, I finally truly experienced the prosperous performing arts scene in Shanghai recently. Autumn is probably the busiest season for performing arts here, as many art festivals took place during this time. With a growing interest in theatre and classical music, I decided to take better advantage of student tickets and good location of NYU Shanghai, and thus had the pleasure to frequently visit most major theatres and music halls in the past two months. Sometimes a good venue is a guarantee of the quality of its shows. So here’s a review of most major venus from my personal experience and provided with practical tips. This time I’m going to shamelessly put a ranking on them.1. A good place to start: Shanghai Oriental Art Center (SHOAC) 425 Dingxiang Road http://en.shoac.com.cn/

Concert Hall (Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal 14.10.22) I can’t recall how many times I’ve been to SHOAC just this semester: I have almost become used to celebrating the weekend with a concert there. If you have only been there for the Reality Show (and only plan to go to Lang Lang’s piano recital in December), you have missed out on a great resource. One of the major host venues of the Shanghai International Art Festival, SHOAC is a world class performing center. The acoustics of its Concert Hall are superb, inferior perhaps only to the newly-opened Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall in the city. SHOAC’s Opera Hall does not have as many seats as older halls like Shanghai Grand Theatre, so the distance between the audience and the stage is relatively small. It also has a small Performance Hall that holds series’ of chamber concerts and lectures. In spite of its professionalism and quality, citizens - especially students - are able to enjoy its performances cheap. There’s one feature that no other Shanghai venue offers so far: student tickets on the day. Generally, when a show is not sold out, SHOAC offers a few special student tickets that can be purchased an hour before the show begins. This feature is awesome because 1) the seats worth hundreds but are only sold at the price of a movie ticket and 2) sometimes quick decisions could bring you much surprise. They post the availability of student tickets on Weibo. The downside of SHOAC is that the quality of its shows vary and is going down in general due to the opening of some other new venues. Nonetheless, SHOAC continues to do an excellent job in popularizing art. It could be the place where you started to fall in love with classical music or drama. So do not be too lazy to walk 20 minutes from the dorm to enjoy a feast of art!

Performance Hall2. Paradise of Classical Music: Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall (SSH) 1380 Fuxing Zhong Road www.sh-symphony.com

Main Hall (Orchestre de Paris, rehearsal 14.11.3) The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (SSO) finally opened its own hall this September, giving a boost to the classical music scene here. The hall is composed of a big orchestra hall and a performance hall. Both feel like delicate musical instruments: exquisite, elegant, soothing. The fact that the place is run by an orchestra instead of a commercial company ensures minimal commercial performances - it’s music for the music’s sake. Browsing through the programs for its 14-15 season, you’ll find Beethoven’s complete String Quartets, piano sonatas and concertos, and big names like Yo-Yo Ma, Zubin Mehta and Wiener Philharmoniker. The programs and musicians are so good that I only regret not having enough time and money to enjoy them all. Really, all concerts here are dedicated to hardcore music lovers, and fans wait outside the ticket office overnight in hope of buying the best seats. Each of the three concerts I went to last month (piano recital by Lubomyr Melnyk, chamber concert led by Rainer Honeck and Orchestre de Paris) were unforgettable: amazing acoustics, great musicians and a good audience that knew the music well. The struggle is that there are no student tickets, and cheap seats are sold very quickly. Nevertheless, in terms of music alone, the tickets are worth every Kuai. 3. Big Stage Shows: Shanghai Culture Square (cover photo) 36 Yongjia Road http://www.shculturesquare.com/ I hate this theatre for its exclusiveness. Its tickets are expensive; the view from the back row of the third floor is so terrible that I dare not to try again. But I love it because it is a beautiful new theatre and lots of great shows arrive here frequently. It is sometimes the only stop in China or Asia for world theatre tours. Later this year, it will welcome the last, main show of year, a German production of Elisabeth, a renowned European musical that you shouldn’t miss. Get a membership card or Union Pay account(银联) so as to save you some money. 4. Drama Festivals and Experimental Theatre - Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center 284 Anfu Road http://www.china-drama.com/page/default.vp.aspx

Arts Theatre (Waiting for Godot, ovation. 14.11.16) This is the go-to place for drama lovers. It has three stages: a big Arts Theatre, a medium sized Drama Salon, and a D6 studio stage. The Arts Theatre is actually not that big, so most shows here are medium-to-small productions. It’s a bit old, but okay for plays. As for now, this center is largely financially supported by the government, which promised affordable tickets and good shows. The tenth Shanghai International Contemporary Theatre Festival (ACT, though I couldn’t make sense of this abbreviation) just took place here. It also hosts the Youth Creative Theatre Festival and College Drama Festival. Its regular season is going well too. By the way, this place is located in the heart of the Former French Concession, so why not go enjoy a play and have an afternoon tea afterwards? 5. Please don’t put on any concerts: Shanghai Grand Theatre 300 Renmin Avenue, or it’s impossible to be missed when you’re at People’s Square http://www.shgtheatre.com/main.jsp You might wonder why I put this most famous, landmark venue at the end. It’s probably because even though I’ve been there for many times, I still do not know how to characterize this place. It has the same problem as SHOAC: the quality of its shows vary tremendously. It refuses to specialize in one genre of art while having only one big hall; in particular, it doesn’t want to give up on classical music (though having a sound shade, its acoustics is nothing comparable to SHOAC or SSH). And the third floor has terrible seats and vision. There are actually two small drama stages hiding in the shadow of this “grand” theatre. But the place does not put too much effort on promoting dramatic arts. Nevertheless, sometimes there are good shows, including those from the recent Edinburgh Fringe Showcase. Once again, please do not put on music performances anymore!

Studio Stage in Shanghai Grand Theatre (I, Malvolio, photo taken when Tim Crouch, the actor, asked everyone to shot the scene. 14.11.15 ) I’m still looking forward to checking out more venues, including the Shanghai Concert Hall in December. It might be too bold for me to conclude that Shanghai is the best city in China for the performing arts, but at least there's always a good variety of shows and concerts to choose from. I know this craziness for shows seems a bit nerdy, but while I was busy threatre-surfing, there were quite a few times when I felt very deeply that the theatre, whether modern or shabby, is a paradise in itself. This article was written by Lu Pang. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Lu Pang