Calendar Of Events for Ancient Paths, Modern Voices Chinese cultural festival

For more information or tickets, call (949) 553-2422 or visit Philharmonic Society.org/ChinaFestival.

CHRISTIAN DIOR PRESENTS PHOTOGRAPHS BY QUENTIN SHIH

South Coast Plaza, Jewel Court, 3333 Bristol St., Costa Mesa

Free event

South Coast Plaza in partnership with Christian Dior will present the U.S. premiere of a capsule exhibition featuring the work of celebrated Beijing-based fashion photographer Quentin Shih. This new presentation is developed from last year’s hugely successful Beijing exhibition, “Christian Dior & Chinese Artists,” which reflected a unique collaboration between Dior and some of China’s leading contemporary artists.

HUNTINGTON LIBRARY AND GARDENS CHINESE GARDEN MODEL DISPLAY

South Coast Plaza, 3333 Bristol St., Costa Mesa

Free event

South Coast Plaza will display a scale model of the 12-acre classical Chinese garden Liu Fang Yuan (The Garden of Flowing Fragrance) completed in early 2008 at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. The Garden is the largest Chinese garden outside of China open to the public, and the scale model will include a never-before-seen second phase, which the Huntington hopes to build in the near future.

“RED CLIFF”

Regency South Coast Village Theater, 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana

Tickets are $10.

Director John Woo presents the West Coast premiere of his latest epic adventure film. A massive hit in Asia and the most expensive Chinese film ever made, “Red Cliff” reunites Woo with international superstar Tony Leung for the first time since the 1992 action classic “Hard Boiled.” The film depicts the legendary tale of the Battle of Red Cliff, which took place in 208 A.D. and was immortalized in the classic Chinese novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” Followed by a Q-and-A session with Woo.

QUANZHOU MARIONETTE THEATER

Orange County Performing Arts Center, Samueli Theater, at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

Tickets are $35 to $50

The puppeteers and musicians of the Quanzhou Marionette Theater perform selections from Chinese folk tales. With song, musical accompaniment, and sophisticated storytelling from the Fujian Province in Southern China, the marionette theater is known as a regional form of traditional Chinese opera. At 7 p.m. Friday, author Adeline Yen Mah, bestselling author of “Falling Leaves,” will read from her work in a pre-concert event. Attending guests will receive a copy of her latest book, “China: A Land of Dragons and Emperors.”

PING PONG DIPLOMACY: THE REMATCH

South Coast Plaza, Crate and Barrel/Macy’s Home Store Wing, Level 1, 3333 Bristol St., Costa Mesa

Free event

In celebration of the legendary “Ping Pong Diplomacy” that helped President Richard Nixon open relations with China in 1972, South Coast Plaza and the Richard Nixon Foundation will host a series of ping pong exhibition matches featuring collegiate athletes, Olympians and youth participants as well as opportunities for the public to “challenge A champ” in competition. There will be a concurrent exhibit of historic photographs of Richard Nixon’s 1972 peace-making journey to China.

CHINESE CULTURAL SHOWCASE

South Coast Plaza, Carousel Court, Level 1, 3333 Bristol St., Costa Mesa

Free event

The South Coast Chinese Cultural Assn. and Irvine Chinese School will present traditional ribbon dance, performances on ancient instruments, and demonstrations of Tai Chi and Kung Fu techniques. A booth featuring Chinese cultural crafts will also be open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on performance days.

MUSICAL JOURNEYS THROUGH CHINA WITH WU MAN

Orange County Performing Arts Center, Samueli Theater, at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

Tickets are $35 to $50

World renowned pipa virtuoso Wu Man, a founding member of Yo-Yo Ma’s cross-cultural Silk Road Ensemble, returns to Orange County as curator and host of an event introducing various Chinese instrumental folk music traditions, featuring an ensemble of artists including the Li Family Daoist Band and the Zhang Family Band.

DOCUMENTING THE GLOBAL CITY: BEIJING

Regency South Coast Village Theater, 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana

Tickets are $10.

Beginning in 2006, USC and Beijing’s Communication University of China launched a program to have student filmmakers collaborate to explore Los Angeles and Beijing and produce short documentaries. Samples will be presented as USC professor Mark Jonathan Harris, a three-time Oscar winner for best documentary film, joins students from USC in a panel discussion following the screening.

THE COLBURN ORCHESTRA WITH CHO-LIANG LIN

Orange County Performing Arts Center, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

Tickets are $30 and up.

The Colburn Orchestra, led by conductor Yehuda Gilad, will be joined by violinist Cho-Liang Lin to perform Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4 and a performance of Tan Dun’s “Out of Peking Opera (Violin Concerto No. 1).” Tan Dun is widely known for his Grammy- and Oscar-winning scores for the movies “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Hero.” The concert concludes with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47.

LANG LANG AND FRIENDS

Orange County Performing Arts Center, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

Tickets are $30 and up.

Pianist Lang Lang returns to Orange County to perform alongside up-and-coming young Chinese musicians, including erhu player Guo Gan, tenor GeQun Wang, cellist Hai-Ye Ni, violinist Zhu Dab and 10-year old piano prodigy Marc Yu. The repertoire includes Schubert’s “Rondo in A major,” Bizet’s “Fantasy On Themes From Carmen,” and Tchaikovsky’s “Piano Trio.” The South Coast Chinese Cultural Assn. will present a pre-concert lecture and demonstration at 6 p.m. featuring Chinese musical instruments performed by the instructor and students from Irvine Chinese School’s Chinese Orchestra and Galaxy Youth Art Performing Group.

PANEL DISCUSSION: “DESIGNING CHINA”

Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach

Free; reservations required at (949) 553-2422.

The UC Humanities Research Institute will host a two-week Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory in Shanghai this summer, titled “Designing China.” A debriefing seminar will take place as part of Ancient Paths, Modern Voices to reflect upon the outcome of the summer institute, focusing on China as a case study.

PLAY READING OF ADELINE YEN MAH’S “FALLING LEAVES”

Julianne Argyros Stage, South Coast Repertory, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

Tickets are $15.

South Coast Repertory will present a staged reading of Chinese American author Adeline Yen Mah’s best-selling book, “Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter,” which recounts the story of the author’s life in China and the tragedies that had overshadowed her life.

“FROM MAO TO MOZART: ISAAC STERN IN CHINA”

Bowers Museum, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana

Free with $12 museum admission or $8 for screening only

The Bowers Museum will present a screening of the 1980 Academy Award-winning documentary “From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China,” the story of how Western culture broke into China, produced and directed by Murray Lerner. The film shows violinist and music teacher Isaac Stern as the first American musician to collaborate with the China Central Symphony Society (now the China National Symphony Orchestra).

The screening will take place concurrently with the Bowers exhibition “Ancient Arts of China: A 5000 Year Legacy.”

“SILVER SPEAR”

Bowers Museum, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana

Free with $12 museum admission or $8 for screening only

“Silver Spear” is a digital opera film starring Yuan Huiqin, a Peking opera artist, who has combined the traditional art form of Chinese opera with contemporary high-tech film and performance art.

YUJA WANG AND THE SHANGHAI SYMPHONY

Orange County Performing Arts Center, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

Tickets are $30 and up.

Led by conductor Long Yu, the festival concludes with Yuja Wang’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto No. 2,” Mussorgsky’s Introduction from “Khovantchina” and Chen Qigang’s scenic cantata “Iris dévoilée,” which features three traditional Chinese instruments: pipa, erhu and zheng.

VIDEO WORK BY GAO SHIQIANG AND CHEN QIULIN

Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach

Admission: $12 adults, $10 students and seniors.

An exhibition pairing video work by contemporary Chinese film artists Gao Shiqiang and Chen Qiulin. Gao Shiqiang’s allegorical epic “Butterfly Lovers” (2006) is a tragic love story that follows three couples through time.

Chen Qiulin’s “Color Line” (2006) is a meditation on rapid urbanization and development in contemporary China.