The Tale Of Two Cities

(2 of 2)

For the moment, Beijing is still a bigger draw for young artists and performers, though the lack of space limits many dance and music troupes to one or two shows a year. "It's hard to be a young artist in Shanghai because the city is so expensive," says Lorenz Helbling, owner of Shanghart Gallery, one of the city's few private art spaces. More important, snobbish Beijing prides itself on being culturally hip and encourages a vibrant jazz scene, avant-garde performance art and stylish modern dance. Shanghai's conservative cultural czars are loath to entertain politically touchy fare, and because there are fewer artists in the city, censors can exercise tighter control. "If a writer wants to publish something with sensitive content, he'll have much better luck trying in Beijing," says Wang Zhousheng, a writer and associate research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Sciences.

Shanghai's entrenched Establishment has blocked several big-name modernist events. When Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra toured China in February, the city's political leadership nearly barred the Grammy-winning Marsalis from performing at the Shanghai Center Theater. Jazz, they sniffed, just wasn't serious enough to merit such an exclusive venue. Marsalis faced no problem in the capital. "In Beijing there are so many cadres from so many different ministries that we could play them off one another," says a promoter involved with the event. "In Shanghai the channels were much narrower, so there was less room for negotiation."

Ultimately, the question is whether Shanghai's money will win out over Beijing's authority. Awash with cash, Shanghai is perpetually dabbling in marquee-name ventures that don't alarm political censors. A splashy Shanghai Biennale is planned for November to showcase contemporary artists from China and elsewhere, and composer Tan Dun has agreed to a China premiere of his next opera, Tea, in Shanghai in 2002 (with help from Bonko Chan and his advertising team). "Beijing will always be the cultural center of China," says Chan. "But with money to import top stars, Shanghai has the potential to be the international arts capital of Asia." Such a Solomonic division isn't likely to dampen the rivalry. But at least it provides the possibility of a kind of cultural dynamism that few living Chinese can remember.