FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 11, 2004

CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119, lisa.lacher@drake.edu

CHINESE CHILDREN TO GIVE FREE PERFORMANCE AT DRAKE AUG. 29

China's Tianjin City Children's Palace Art Ensemble will give a free performance at Drake University at 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 29, in Drake University's Performing Arts Hall, Harmon Fine Arts Center, 25th Street and Carpenter Avenue.

The Tianjin City Children's Palace provides extracurricular training for 12,000 children in a wide variety of Chinese and Western art forms such as painting, calligraphy and acrobatics. The Palace Art Ensemble performs a mix of traditional Chinese and Western music, singing and dancing.

The performance at Drake is sponsored by Drake's Center for Global Citizenship and Iowa Sister States. Tianjin City is an autonomous municipality with a population of approximately 11 million located in Iowa's Sister State of Hebei, China.

From Aug. 27 through Sept, 5., the Palace Art Ensemble will give a series of performances in Des Moines, Burlington, Davenport, Dubuque, Osage, Charles City and Fort Dodge. All performances are free and open to the public. A cultural facilitator and native Chinese speaker will be present at all performances to explain what the audience is seeing and give cultural background.

Drake's Center for Global Citizenship strives to educate students to function effectively in different cultural contexts and to ensure that global and international perspectives and issues are an integral part of the intellectual and cultural experience of all members of the Drake community. The center also works closely with community organizations to promote international understanding. For more information about the center, visit www.drake.edu/cgc.

Founded in 1985, Iowa Sister States is a private non-profit organization that contracts with the State of Iowa to manage Iowa's eight sister state relationships. The vision of Iowa Sister States is to facilitate Iowa's integration into the world by sponsoring programs that promote the cultural and economic interests of Iowa and its citizens through volunteer, public and private action.

Cutline: Members of China's Tianjin City Children's Palace Art Ensemble will perform at Drake University on Sunday, Aug. 29. The children range in age from 9 to 17.