India and China to take centre stage at next year's Edinburgh International Festival

Published on Wednesday 20 October 2010 16:38

NEXT year's Edinburgh International Festival will play host to Scotland's most high-profile celebration of Indian and Chinese culture, The Scotsman can reveal.

• EIF director Jonathan Mills

The two countries will take centre stage in a major Asian Pacific theme being plotted by festival director Jonathan Mills.

He sets off on a fact-finding mission to India and China today in the hope of booking acts and raising government investment to fund their appearances, after previous visits to both earlier this year.

Music, theatre and dance companies are being invited to take part in a specially curated programme, which follows this year's "New World" theme and the Homecoming strand of the 2009 festival.

It is hoped that support from the Indian and Chinese governments will help plug any gaps in funding that the festival loses from its 5 million annual subsidy from the Scottish Government, Creative Scotland and Edinburgh City Council.

Mr Mills fears support from the government may be slashed by up to 15 per cent next year. However the festival has attracted some 300,000 worth of funding from overseas governments, a sum organisers hope to top next year. Ticket sale receipts rose three per cent to 2.67m.

Full details of the 2011 theme are not due to be announced until next month. But organisers revealed next year's programme would "shift the focus outwards from Europe and explore more distant horizons and cultures."

A huge delegation from China visited Edinburgh during this year's Festival, while it emerged last month that the city was trying to develop new business links with Chinese cities.

Edinburgh's festivals have agreed to develop closer links with India over the next few years under a new concordat between Britain and India, agreed by Prime Minister David Cameron.

A spokeswoman for the EIF said: "Jonathan Mills's vision for the festival each year has been to shift the focus outwards from Europe to explore more distant horizons and cultures.

"The 2011 festival will continue that exploration and offer new experiences, including work from Asia. We will be able to say more when we make our scheduled announcement in the middle of November."

Professor Natascha Gentz, director of the Confucius Institute for Scotland, which promotes Chinese culture and language, said: "I very much welcome the focus on Asia planned by EIF for the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival programme.

"Focusing as we do on China, we know there are a number of world class artistic companies, both contemporary and traditional in dance, opera, theatre and music.

"Bringing a selection of such companies to the Festival will help to broaden awareness of contemporary China's divergent and exciting cultural scene."