Casting of Jens and Yanyan in Shanghai: The virtual companions come to life!

For the seven minutes long energy source show, the protagonists Jens and Yanyan were casted today. They are the real life counterparts of the virtual companions guiding the visitors of balancity. The task of the German-Chinese couple will be to lead the audience throughout the Energy Source and to give guidance on how to initiate the swinging of the sphere, with a self-weight of over a ton, alone through their shouts.

Pavilion Director Urte Fechter and her deputy Julia Mok-Russo of the Koelnmesse International together with the team of Milla & Partner, responsible for the Pavilion exhibition, examined the skills of the seven Chinese young ladies and two western young men. An overall of 150 applications for the role of Yanyan and roughly over 20 for the role of Jens were received. Being the first casting held in China, video recordings from Hong Kong and Stuttgart were additionally screened and reviewed.

Today, five of the female and two male contestants were able to convince the jury.

During the first phase of the pavilion's operation, between May and June 2010, they will perform during the Energy Source show. In order to find the missing three male partners for Yanyan additional castings will be held in Shanghai and Stuttgart by mid to end of March.