New ideas

This year's Showcase introduced a brand-new segment: Idea. With it, Nie set out to dismantle creative walls and invite all boundary-pushing thinkers into a bold conversation about the future of theater.

She curated a star-studded Idea art committee of 12 interdisciplinary artists, who led workshops and forums for what Nie calls "the most sincere, raw and profound discussions".

Among the guests were Luo Huiqian and Yang Wei from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, scientists who helped bring lunar soil samples back to Earth, as well as sci-fi author and futurist Chen Qiufan, and practitioners of crypto art who even developed a "crypto theater" project.

"We brought in interdisciplinary voices to spark imagination," says Nie. To her, theater's essence lies in "theatricality", not its physical space.