Tale of a “fusion city”

A new curriculum and DVD consider Beijing

The Road to Beijing video and a downloadable teacher’s guide are online

In partnership with the Silk Road Project, the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) has released a new curriculum, The Road to Beijing, to provide middle- and high-school students a wide lens on China’s rapidly changing capital city as the 2008 Summer Olympic Games draw global attention.

The curriculum includes a 20-minute DVD filmed during the Silk Road Ensemble’s China concert tour last October, which approaches this city in flux through the eyes of Ensemble members, including Beijing Central Conservatory of Music graduates Wu Man, Wu Tong and DaXun Zhang.

Concert footage and interviews with cellist and Artistic Director Yo-Yo Ma and other musicians chronicle the intermingling of the historic and the modern in what Wu Tong terms this “fusion city.” The DVD also traces the development of Ambush from Ten Sides from a traditional Chinese folk song for pipa to an arrangement in the Ensemble’s repertoire for both Eastern and Western instruments.

SPICE is recognized internationally for its multidisciplinary curricula relating to Asia. With The Road to Beijing, the Silk Road Project extends a partnership with SPICE that began with the production of the Along the Silk Road curriculum for students in grades six through 10, which has been taught in Chicago Public Schools and will soon be introduced in New York City. The Road to Beijing curriculum and DVD are being distributed free of charge to 10,000 high schools in the United States, chosen based on their programs of international study.