China's most celebrated operatic export Tian Hao Jiang's "I Sing Beijing" is a summer program bringing some 20 promising young professionals from the U.S., Europe and South America to China to learn to sing in Mandarin, a program that will culminate with a gala concert at the National Centre for the Performing Arts on August 18.

For uninformed visitors, the sight and sound of foreigners belting it out in Chinese might seem bizarre. But Glenn is part of an unprecedented program called I Sing Beijing that has brought to China 20 young Western performers from the United States, Europe and Central and South America to learn to sing opera in Mandarin. More than 200 people auditioned in Los Angeles, Denver and New York.

Adaji said the National Troupe has at various times engaged in cultural diplomacy by collaborating with international cultural groups such as when they recently hosted a performance by an Israeli troupe. He told the minister that the troupe has received four invitations from the Republic of Congo, Egypt, Brazil and Germany to represent Nigeria.

Across the country this is a tough time for small arts groups because state grants have largely shriveled up. Much of America’s artistic activity does not happen in major recital halls and theaters; instead it occurs...where smaller arts organizations are highly dependent on state grants.

Kabul may be short of many things, but it has lots of concrete blast walls. And that is inspiring a group of nascent graffiti artists to give voice, however fearfully, to a biting critique of graft, economic inequality and the second-class status of women in their country. Protest graffiti is a new and still-tentative mode of expression in a society with little tradition of social dissent.

For the past seven years, Canadian street artist Kaid Ashton has been traveling to some of the world's most dangerous slums documenting the people he meets with his camera. He then posts his work on walls around the cities he visits. Ashton's street art is not political. It is about crossing cultures and getting to know people in the process.

Artists that have been based in Berlin for 3 years or more are being offered the opportunity to be inspired by living in a new culture, with funding from the state.... The project is envisioned as a cultural exchange programme and the length of time to spend in each particular country varies.

London's Bush theatre is to present its next show - a celebration of the King James Bible - at Westminster Abbey, in an overnight performance this October. Sixty-Six Books will see 66 novelists, playwrights, poets and authors respond to each of the 66 books in the historic Bible to mark its 400th anniversary.