A new form of theater will be introduced at this year's event: My Great Work by David Espinosa from Spain is an object theater show "with no actors or scripts", Huang says. "It is literally one person in the middle of the room playing with miniature models and figurines, building a utopia of his own."

Because of the scale of the performance, each show will play to no more than 25 audience members. "No dialogue or speech is needed and you will have no difficulty following the narrative," Huang says. Although it may look like a lonely child's game, the play will "evoke memories, have emotional depth and will be interesting for sophisticated audiences".

The Chinese play Shan Hai Jing, which premiered on Wednesday, is a physical theater production directed by Rich Rusk. The play takes the fantastic fairies and beasts documented in the ancient Chinese book Shan Hai Jing (The Classic of Mountains and Seas) and transposes them in a contemporary urban setting.

During the festival, visitors to the second and third floors of the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center will be able to see the Eizo-Theater installation by Japanese playwright and director Toshiki Okada. A founder of the theatrical company chelfitsch, Okada has been a representative figure of contemporary theater in Japan. "We would like to invite a proper theater production by Okada, but the company could not make it this year," Huang says. Instead, the artist, in collaboration with video designer Shimpei Yamada, created a projection of video images that interact with viewers as they pass by.

Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, which reopened in June after an 18-month building refurbishment, claims to be China's first open theater. Exhibitions are presented in almost all open spaces in the theater building. "We would love to see people come in and spend time here, even when no performances are taking place in any of the three theater spaces," says Chen Li, the public relations manager of SDAC.

Aside from the Eizo-Theater installation, an exhibition showcasing the history of Shanghai's theater art development is presented on the sixth floor of the venue, while on the floor above, a new media exhibition by a group named LoopWave is also ongoing and will run through Oct 27.

ZHANG KUN in Shanghai