For 25 novice acting students at Shanghai's Qingpu Cultural Center, July 4 was not only the day for their final class but also for their first public performance. Having begun the course in April, the students attended weekly night classes that prepared them for the performance of three short plays on stage at the center.

The performance lasted for about an hour and was open and free for visitors. A student surnamed Bai played a leading role in The Proposal, adapted from a novel of the same title by Russian playwright Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. When the curtain fell with the conclusion of the performance, she felt sentimental. "It was like bidding farewell to a world," she told Shanghai-based news portal ThePaper.cn.

For Bai, a part-time interpreter for exhibitions, this once-a-week acting class has provided sanctuary, steering her away from routine chores.

More vivid night 

The evening art school, initiated by Shanghai Mass Art Center, a cultural institution run by the Shanghai Municipal Government since 2016, has now become an integral part of Shanghai's cultural landscape.

The school aims to provide long-term art services to residents aged between 18 and 55, who are either in school or at work in the daytime. Divided into spring and autumn semesters, the night classes are held in cultural centers and art galleries throughout all districts of Shanghai. Each semester normally has 12 classes. The courses take place once a week from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. on weekdays and some are available on weekends.

The school offers a diverse range of classes, including dance, music, lifestyle, fashion and traditional culture. Many intangible heritage crafts have also been included in the curriculum.

A large advantage of the classes for many is the price, 500 yuan ($70) for 12 classes. "It is almost the market price for a single class and here you can get 12," Bai said. Along with the offline class, some online classes are also available at the even lower price of 300 yuan ($41) for 12 classes.

As the classes become more widely recognized, it has become increasingly difficult to secure a seat as each offline class can only accept 25 students. When online applications for this spring semester opened to the public in March, many of the classes were booked out within five minutes.

Figures from the Shanghai Mass Art Center show that over 380,000 people had applied for the spring semester classes but only 6,507 managed to secure an offline seat. People born after 1980 accounted for 80 percent of the group. Whether to find a means of relaxation or simply to create an opportunity to explore untapped artistic potential, the night art classes have become a new love for the nine-to-fivers.

"I am a wife and mother now. When I was young, I followed the routine of going to a regular college and then landing a regular job," a student in the acting class wrote in a post on popular Chinese microblogging platform Weibo. "But I have always wanted to try something different, not as a career aspiration, but to explore an artistic territory beyond my regular routine."

Passion can overcome all obstacles. As the class is far from her home, Bai spent one and a half hours traveling each way but never skipped a class. Sometimes, when she arrived home from school, it was almost 11 p.m.

"The atmosphere in the class is more like a family," Bai said. "People from all segments of society support each other in their artistic endeavors. There is no competition. What you receive here is only encouragement."

Bai considers the class a platform to awaken students' inner artists. Before the final show, they conducted intense rehearsals on weekends, with each rehearsal lasting about three hours. They brought food to share and prepared every detail for the show by themselves, from costumes to props.

Another student, who studied Zumba dance, quoted a sentence from the book The Little Prince to describe her feelings about her class every Wednesday: "If you come at four in the afternoon, I'll begin to be happy by three." "For me, I start feeling happy every Tuesday, one day before the class," she told ThePaper.cn.

A bigger night map 

Xu Guannan, a tai chi instructor, began teaching night classes in tai chi in the autumn semester of last year. A tai chi practitioner for over 20 years, the 31-year-old taught at three separate teaching locations in Pudong New Area during this spring semester. The style that he teaches was listed as Shanghai intangible cultural heritage in 2015.

"The movements that I teach in the night classes are relatively simple, making it easier for the students to start and persist with the practice," he said. Between the spring and autumn semesters, the summer vacation also offers a one-month tai chi course.

One of the teaching locations is about an hour from where he lives. "It is a non-profit project and teachers of the night classes don't make money from it, but it is a good way to promote intangible cultural heritage and I am quite delighted to see students improve during the classes," he told Beijing Review.

One student who attended the spring semester felt her health greatly improve after taking up tai chi. This student also showed up at the summer vacation class and said she would also be applying for the autumn semester.

Xu will continue teaching during the autumn semester and plans to teach at more locations.

The Shanghai Mass Art Center has continued to expand its night school course catalog. During this spring semester, the center launched a new class tailored to international students—traditional Chinese pastry-making. The teacher used to be a chef at five-star hotels including the Jinjiang and Marriott hotels in Shanghai. 

To cater to students who had grasped the basics in their chosen arts and wanted to reach a higher level, the center also offered a number of advanced classes, including in calligraphy, vocal training and classical dance this spring semester. These advanced classes were a bit more expensive, 800 yuan ($110) for 12 classes, and the applicants had to pass an interview before joining the class.

Information from the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism shows that in the upcoming autumn semester, which starts in September, the teaching locations will increase from 123 to 143 and over 100 new classes will be added. About 10,000 students are expected to join the offline classes.

(Print Edition Title: The Night Learners) 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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