CANGZHOU, China, January 26, 2023 (Newswire.com)
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An exhibition hall featuring China’s Grand Canal has been in full swing and is expected to open this year, announced the Cangzhou city government. The Grand Canal carries not only produce and raw materials in Cangzhou but also acrobatics and martial arts in this city of the country’s north Hebei Province.

Cangzhou City is historically renowned for both its martial arts practitioners and acrobats. The tradition of practicing martial arts in Cangzhou dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC – 476 BC). It rose in popularity during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and was renowned at home and abroad by the end of the Qing Dynasty (1645-1911).  

A Grand Canal carries half of Chinese history. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, a prestigious cultural heritage, was excavated over 2,500 years ago and ran through the ancient Chinese civilization.

Cangzhou, a coastal town endowed with both the Grand Canal and the Bohai sea, is a stronghold of South-North China, and the vicinity of the national capital. Its particular geographical location, the multi-ethnic settlement, the promotion of imperial civil examination, and many other historical factors have made Cangzhou a hot land of martial arts. 

The Annals of Cangzhou show that about 1,937 Martial Scholars and Martial Jurors in the Ming and Qing Dynasties came from Cangzhou, with 53 martial arts or independent boxing types originating or spreading here, accounting for 40 percent of China’s 129 martial arts and boxing types. Cangzhou was officially named among the country’s first batch of the “hometown of martial arts” in 1992. The State Council listed Cangzhou Martial Arts in the first national intangible cultural heritage batch in 2006.

Nearly two million people, or nearly 26 percent of Cangzhou’s population, practice martial arts, which go beyond simple fitness and competition and have become essential in exploring the history and preserving Chinese traditional culture.

In addition to Martial Arts, Wuqiao Acrobatics has given new life and vitality to Cangzhou’s cultural inheritance. The Ministry of Culture officially awarded Wuqiao as “the hometown of acrobatics in China” in 2004. The State Council listed Wuqiao Acrobatics in the first national intangible cultural heritage batch in 2006.

China Wuqiao International Acrobatic Festival, an iconic event with more than 30 years of history, is also known as one of the “three major acrobatic venues in the world,” together with the acrobatic festivals of Monte-Carlo and Paris. Wuqiao Acrobatic World is the world’s leading acrobatic theme park, a national AAAA-level and unique acrobatic tourist attraction.

Since the reopening of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in Cangzhou in September 2022, the Grand Canal culture has been revived. Cangzhou will continue to construct the Grand Canal Cultural Belt as the guide, focusing on acrobatics, martial arts, and other special intangible cultural heritage projects, promoting the systematic protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage and striving to create a new business card of “China’s Grand Canal Intangible Cultural Heritage City”.

Contact Information:

Sasa Guan

pr

[email protected]

+13307806068

Jiayu Ding

[email protected]

Original Source:

Exhibition Hall Featuring Grand Canal Cultural Heritage to Open in China’s ‘Hometown of Martial Arts and Acrobatics’

New publisher Alexandria found an outpouring of love and a historic sellout for book NFT collection, TRYST, from award-winning poet and artist Ana María Caballero. Now, they’re releasing the second edition.

Lasker and Caballero celebrate TRYST
Amelie Lasker (left) and Ana Mar\u00eda Caballero (right) celebrated the launch and sellout of the first edition of TRYST on Dec. 8, 2022, at Usagi NY.

BROOKLYN, N.Y., January 26, 2023 (Newswire.com)
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“Amazing to see such an incredibly strong reception for [literature] within the web3 space.” – Keith Grossman, President of TIME Magazine

Readers gathered at Usagi NY on Dec. 8 for the launch party to promote Ana María Caballero’s new fiction collection TRYST. However, the book had already sold out that morning, within 48 hours of release. Keith Grossman, President of TIME Magazine, had just collected the book on the secondary market. The promotional event had become a celebration instead.

Poet and artist Ana María Caballero released a digital collection of short stories, each with a one-of-a-kind cover. With the Alexandria team, publishers of special collectible editions of books as NFTs, Caballero presented her book as a web3 native art piece. The book isn’t token-gated, which means anyone can read it, regardless of whether they own the NFT. Buying a copy, then, means creating a relationship between the reader and the author.

“Web3 publishing is revolutionary,” Caballero Tweeted the day the book was released for pre-sale. “Finished editing a collection of stories today. Minted them as a digital book via my own smart contract, where I own all royalties. Shared it with you all. Chose a price, chose not to token-gate. I repeat: as an emerging author I chose.”

Ana María Caballero won the Steel Toe Books 2022 Book Award for poetry collection Mammal, which will be released this year. She is the recipient of the Beverly International Prize for Literature, Colombia’s José Manuel Arango National Poetry Prize, and a Sevens Foundation Grant. Her pioneering work with poetry on the blockchain has been featured by outlets such as Right Click Save, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Elle UK. She co-founded theVERSEverse, a digital gallery for poetry. 

This groundbreaking release is the first fiction book from Alexandria, a new publisher creating limited edition digital books powered by web3, which received coverage this year from CoinDesk and Esquire. Alexandria is creating literary experiences for the digital age, focusing on the preservation and access of information and on putting IP and royalties in the hands of authors using emerging technologies. 

Alexandria’s founders, Amelie Lasker (MPhil, Cambridge University) and Sonia Joseph (Ph.D. candidate, Mila), are writers themselves. They created Alexandria out of a desire to contribute to the innovation of books and the ways in which they will be made and read in the future.

Released on Jan. 26, the book’s second edition makes more copies available for readers to collect, enjoy, and gift, while paying homage to the first edition in its art style. Collectors of the second edition will receive one of five original covers; the covers feature foliage inspired by a Brooklyn winter (with the earliest hints of spring) created by artist Alexandria Sofija and cover designer Julia Lasker.

TRYST explores the moments and the non-moments, the loves, the losses, and the in-between that make up the lives of the people of Brooklyn. A set of three lyrical and arresting short stories, TRYST offers a glimpse into the poetic and expansive inner lives of three women, each rooted in a different Brooklyn neighborhood.

“These three narratives are told by women looking for ways to be free and failing,” Caballero remarks. “There’s beauty in the endurance delivered by failure—a beauty I love to dial. I say: ‘Hi, heartbreaking beauty, how are you today? Will you lift your foot from my throat, from my wrists, so that I might describe the shadow of your size?'”

To read the book, which is free for the public, and find updates about the second edition release, visit alexandrialabs.xyz.

Contact Information:

Amelie Lasker

Co-Founder and CEO

[email protected]

(978) 430-8449

Related Images

Lasker and Caballero celebrate TRYST


Amelie Lasker (left) and Ana Mar\u00eda Caballero (right) celebrated the launch and sellout of the first edition of TRYST on Dec. 8, 2022, at Usagi NY.

The first edition of TRYST


One of 100 unique covers by Alexandria Sofija.

Original Source:

TRYST: An Artful Story Collection and Its New Publisher Find a Home on Ethereum

Laura Lee Everett Headshot for Laura Lee Everett (high-resolution version available at www.usitt.org\/lle)

LIVERPOOL, N.Y., January 26, 2023 (Newswire.com)
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