Wang Xiaoying

Wang Xiaoying is a Chinese director. His father was an actor of the traditional Chinese opera, and his mother worked in a theatre company, and Wang Xiaoying grew up at the “backstage” of the theatre company in which his parents worked. After graduating from high school in the early 70s, he joined a small group of strolling artists touring in the villages of Anhui. Traveling was difficult, often the temperature was below zero degree Celsius. Refusing to study at the Institute of Technology, where he passed the exams, a year later Xiaoying entered the Central Academy of Arts.   In communist China, religion and Western art were mostly inaccessible. Only in the 80s, Wang could read Shakespeare and Brecht, who became in his personal pantheon on a par with Тан Сянцьзу. This was an essential milestone for Xiaoying, who was internationally recognised for mixing oriental and western styles of theatre.

In 1984, Wang for the first time moved away from the thousand-year theatre tradition of China, making a performance based on the modern play about nowadays people - The Magic Cube. The critics well received the performance, but Wang was in a creative crisis and did not understand how to continue his work. In 1988, he spent three months in West Berlin and watched more than 100 performances. The European theatre exerted significant influence on him and helped to overcome the crisis.   Now Wang has many titles, including Vice President of the National Theatre of China, Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Theatre Association. He has a doctorate in directing. In his native country, he received such awards as "excellent drama Artist" and "outstanding director of the New Century Awards".  

Wang Xiaoying’s performance of ”The Prince of Lanling" of the National Theatre of China is in the program of the XIV International Chekhov Theatre Festival.