The opening ceremony of the summer camp for Chinese young choreographers kicks off in Beijing on Monday. [Photo/Chinadaily.com.cn]

A 20-day summer camp for Chinese young choreographers, sponsored by the Chinese Dancers Association, kicked off in Beijing on Monday.

Thirty-seven choreographers, selected from more than 200 candidates around the country, will be divided into small classes for targeted training. Some of them are the mainstays of provincial dance troupes or dance academies, while others are free dancers on the front line of choreography or performance.

For this program, dozens of experienced tutors from various artistic fields are invited to provide guidance in the whole process of creation. These include Wang Xiaolan, head of the Dance Department at Connecticut College; Daniel Cardoso, director of Quorum Dance Company in Portugal; writer and poet Feng Tang and Laurent Van Kote, an advisor to the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.

The program also provides opportunities for international exchanges and for participants to go to countryside to collect examples of folk arts, thereby improving artistic innovation ability, nurturing talentand creating an influential young dancers alliance.

The summer camp is part of the Young Talents Training Project supported by the 2014 China National Arts Fund, as well as the National Youth Dance Development Project sponsored by the Chinese Dancers Association. It aims to provide talented young dancers with all-round guidance and training, and to encourage outstanding original work in the country.

Luo Bin, secretary-general of the China Dancers Association; Zhang Kun, deputy director of China National Arts Fund Management Center; Li Xiaoxiang, art director of China National Opera and Dance Drama Theater; Ou Jianping, director of Dance Institute of Chinese National Academy of Arts and He Lishan, the head of the China Oriental Song and Dance Ensemble, attended the opening ceremony of the program.