Discover the best things to do in Beijing with our weekly roundup of art and exhibitions, music, performances and trending activities around town. To recommend an upcoming event or activity, please contact li-ping@chinadaily.com.cn.

Bunian Tu, one of China's most celebrated surviving ancient paintings, is on display. [Photo by Wang Kaihao/chinadaily.com.cn]

Tibetan relics on display at Capital Museum

The rarely seen Bunian Tu, one of China's most celebrated surviving ancient paintings, is on display at the Capital Museum.

The 1.3-meter-long scroll painting, also known as Emperor Taizong Receiving the Tibetan Envoy, is generally believed to be painted by Tang Dynasty (618-907) artist Yan Liben, but it is also speculated to be a facsimile of Yan's original work from the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).

Learn more here.

If you go:
9 am - 5 pm, through July 22 (closed on Mondays). Capital Museum, 16 Fuxingmen Street, Xicheng district. 010-6339-3339.
Ticket: Free

[Photo/chncpa.org]

Hamlet (Mandarin)

"To be or not to be, that is the question." For more than 400 years, Hamlet, arguably William Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, has enthralled countless dramatists and scholars. The play tells the tale of how Hamlet, prince of Denmark, avenged his dead father, in an allegory for English and European history.

Beijing Comedy Theater is putting on a Mandarin version of the play through next week.

Learn more here.

If you go:
7:30 pm, March 2-10 (except March 5 and 6). Beijing Comedy Theater, 11 Chaoyangmen North Street, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 400-610-3721.
Ticket: 80 - 500 yuan (half price for a second ticket)

[Photo/douban.com]

Reviewing classics on a weekend day

Movies help slow down minds in a fast-paced society, where work occupies five days a week. This Sunday at the Snail Hostel in Beijing's hutong areas, two classic films will be screened for free: Dead Poets Society (1989) and the Oscar-winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).

If you go:
2-6:30 pm, March 4. No 73 Daxing Hutong, Jiaodaokou Nandajie (South Street). 010-8402-2817.
Ticket: Free

[Photo/chncpa.org]

The Sleeping Beauty

The Sleeping Beauty is a ballet in a prologue and three acts, debuting in 1890. The music was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

A new version, presented by the ballet company of the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in 2006, will meet a Beijing audience this weekend.

Learn more here. 

If you go:
7:30 pm, March 2-4. Opera House, National Center for the Performing Arts, 2 West Chang'an Avenue, Xicheng district. 010 -6655-0000.
Ticket: 100-680 yuan

[Photo provided to China Daily]

Mural duty

An ongoing exhibition at the National Museum of China features a selection of reproductions of Dunhuang murals by the late Zhang Daqian, the maestro of traditional Chinese ink-brush painting. Zhang lived in Dunhuang for nearly three years in the early 1940s, copying murals at the Mogao and Yulin grottoes.

Learn more here.

If you go:
9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays, through March 4. National Museum of China, 16 East Chang'an Avenue, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6511-6400.

[Photo/douban.com]

180 Faces

Works on show at artist Liu Wei's recent exhibition, 180 Faces, are not portraits of people in real life. Instead, the paintings of human faces are reflections of emotions and imaginations of the 62-year-old artist. Taking more than a year to finish, the "portraits" on cardboard represent a synthesis of the artist's pictorial concerns over the past years, and mark his foray into novel artistic territory.

The Beijing-born artist's paintings have been exhibited around the world, including in New York and at the Venice Biennale.

Learn more here.

If you go:
10 am - 7 pm, through March 11. Ullens Center of Contemporary Art, 798 Art Zone, 4 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang district.
Ticket: 30 yuan