"Walking onto the stage, I found it was beautifully decorated with colorful flowers and flags."

Chinese acrobat Wang Guiqin, 67, could not help skipping and turning around, while recalling her 1959 "Diabolo" performance to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

She now teaches for the China National Acrobatic Troupe which has 134 acrobats. Every year the troupe puts on more than 1,000 shows.

Since its establishment in 1950, the troupe has been funded by the government. Whatever money it needed to operate, the troupe was given. Then in 2005, thousands of arts and entertainment organizations across the country, including the acrobatic troupe, were told by the central government to become financially independent.

It means the troupe has been receiving a set amount of 18 million yuan (about US$2.6 million) per year since 2006.According to the cultural bureau of the Beijing municipal government, those funds were set to expire in December 2008.

"Our tickets revenues aren't enough to pay our acrobats," said Wang Yinmei, financial director of the troupe. She said it takes about 38 million yuan a year to operate. "We need more time."

In preparation of the deadline, the China National Acrobatic Troupe invested in a marketing plan, redesigned shows, trained acrobats to dance and sing and concentrated on gaining an audience in the domestic market.

Sun Fuhe, was invited to be the artistic director of troupe in 2006. He had four years of artistic marketing experience in the US and implemented t-shirt and brochure sales. Sun also redesigned the show.

"In order to cater to the present-day audience, we employed a lot of elements such as modern dancing and singing," Sun said. "Our acrobatic play has become a comprehensive performance."

The marriage of acrobatics and dance gave birth to the troupe's new work, "Splendid!".

"It is incredible, every detail is so beautiful," said Nataliya Shcherbakova, a French ballet dancer who saw the show during the Beijing Gala of Traditional Culture.

"Spendid!" proved to be a commercial success. In 2007, it played 117 times in Japan and was shown during the 2008 Beijing Olympics in August.

"About ninety percent of 70,000 season tickets were sold out," said Yang Shuo, the troupe's marketing manager. "Tickets were priced around 300."

The troupe, which manages the Beijing International Arts School, set up in 1999, began separately training acrobats to dance and sing making them more versatile.

"Music became an integral part of the acrobatic performance, rather than working as background sound," said Wang.

The school, funded by the educational bureau of the municipal government, is a talent base for the troupe. It normally takes at least six years for a nine-year-old to become a candidate for the troupe.

In the past, the troupe focused on performing globally, mainly as a diplomatic delegation.

"Like table tennis, known as ping pang diplomacy, we helped forge the relationship between China and the US," Yang said. "The troupe was not worried by the market in those days."

Now it must focus on the domestic market.

"We have long forgot that China itself is a huge market," said Sun. "If we can win the home audience, we will be better prepared for the audience abroad."

Even with these changes, the troupe could not continue operating after the Dec. deadline without financial assistance from the government.

"We know if we perform bad, the company will be closed," said Yang. "We started to feel pressure we never felt before."

That pressure eased this Nov. when the government told the troupe it would extend financial assistance for another five years.

Li Enjie, vice director of the Beijing cultural bureau said the central government didn't want reformed groups to close and wanted to encourage others to implement financial reforms.

"Starting now, all entertainment sectors still financed by the government, such as the China National Song and Dance Ensemble, must be turned into companies, whether they like it or not," said Li Xiaolei, vice director of the culture industry department of the Ministry of Culture.

Extending December's deadline by five years gives groups time to do this.

"It is a great relief," Wang said.

The China National Acrobatic Troupe will continue to improve its strategies until it can be financially independent of the government. It has no other choice.

"Next step, we will try to develop a brand with more marketing staff, especially in the global market," Sun said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 1, 2008)