The Theme of the 8th Wuzhen Theatre Festival – Burgeoning

The Gleam of Burgeoning; the Sprouting of the Bamboo Shoot

Bamboo shoots emerge from the earth with vigor, like the horns of calves braving birth, bursting with the upward force of new life; beneath the ground, a single horizontal root (the rhizome) connects the shoots like arteries connect veins, the shoots living and growing symbiotically, their roots many and flourishing. In the future, the bamboo will grow into a luxuriant, beautiful forest of thousands of green bamboo poles. Bamboo, with its “yesterday” in the shared root beneath the soil, its “today” in the young shoots peeking above the ground, and its “tomorrow” in its sturdy green stems, is just like the yesterday, today and tomorrow of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival. Looking to the future, theatre is to Wuzhen as bamboo is to the surrounding Jiangnan region—a symbol that cannot be ignored.  

-- Huang Hai, Graphic Design Director

We chose this theme in 2019, before the pandemic disrupted our lives and the world. At that time, the English word we chose was "Flourishing." Now, two years later, we choose another aspect of the Chinese word, "Burgeoning," which signifies new beginnings and new hopes, and more closely matches our state of mind.