The 16th Macao Arts Festival will be held from March 7 to April 2 this year to showcase diversified forms of arts from the east and the west, according to the organizer. 

The Macao Cultural Institute announced the festival at a press conference Monday in a well-preserved Qing-Dynasty residential house built in 1889, which helped to create an artistic air.

This year's art festival will feature 18 programs and 28 performances from China's mainland and Taiwan, South Korea, Portugal, Switzerland, Brazil, Canada, the United States and India.

The festival will coincide with the 4th Macao International Video Art Cycle, a retrospective of 100 years of the Chinese cinema and the 2005 Macao Annual Visual Arts Exhibition.

In a preview of the programs during the press conference, the art pieces were as diverse as the Kun opera, which has been recognized by UNESCO as "a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity," musical theater, puppet theater, Chinese cinema music, Korean percussion music, Brazilian forro and modern dance.

(Xinhua News Agency January 25, 2005)