By Steven Mufson

Washington Post Foreign Service

BEIJING, Aug. 31 -- As a torch was passed from hand to hand and a performer sang a song called "Keep on Moving Forward," more than 15,000 women cheered the opening today of the Nongovernmental Organizations Forum on Women amid controversies over visas, venues and Chinese restrictions on demonstrations by participants.

At the opening ceremony in a Beijing stadium, Chinese performers put on a variety show that featured orange-clad dancers with yellow and green pompoms, a 126-piece all-female Chinese orchestra playing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," thousands of balloons, Beijing opera, women carrying plaster doves and members of the Song & Dance Ensemble of the general political department of the Chinese army.

"Look at the world through women's eyes -- look and act," said Supatra Masdit, a Thai politician in charge of the meeting of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). "The women's movement will go forward into the next century with higher spirits and . . . will help create a new and democratic relationship for humankind."

A rallying call was issued in six languages: "Let us celebrate women's power -- our strength."

Thursday marks the beginning of more than 10 days of workshops and assemblies to be held in the Beijing suburb of Huairou for delegates from organizations concerned about women's issues. They hope to influence a "program of action" document that is to be debated and issued by governmental representatives at the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women that starts Monday.

"There is enormous potential for putting pressure on governments and institutions to change," said Bella Abzug, the former New York City congresswoman who now helps run the Women's Environment & Development Organization.

The NGO Forum is offering participants a dizzying choice of events -- 5,000 workshops and panels on subjects ranging from "Sexism and the Buddhist Religion" to "Women's Empowerment" and "Cooking With Sunshine: A Global Strategy." Other sessions will deal with human rights in China, women's banking, affirmative action and family planning.

Though most of the sessions will focus on the problems women confront around the world, today's ceremony was a well-orchestrated celebration beneath a blimp that read: "Equality Development Peace Friendship." The performances took place against a giant cutout of a woman who appears to be bravely turned toward a strong headwind. "The Goddess of Joy is holy and pure, and the good earth is bathed in the brilliance of the sun," the Chinese program notes said, describing the backdrop.

Behind the upbeat opening ceremony on the eve of the forum, controversies still swirled about the Chinese hosts and comments by a security official who said public demonstrations would be confined to an area the size of a basketball court within the sealed-off NGO Forum site in Huairou.

At a news conference this morning, Irene Santiago, the NGO Forum's executive director, said the Chinese never told organizers of any such restrictions. There is "no such instruction -- nor will such instruction ever be given," she said. "We're certainly not going to allow that a small area of the big forum site is designated as an area for freedom of expression."

The letter of agreement signed by the Chinese government gives organizers jurisdiction over the site allocated to them in Huairou, a town near the Great Wall an hour's drive north of Beijing, Santiago said.

The spat was just one of the tensions between the boisterous forum participants and government officials anxious to make sure the enthusiasm for participation and demonstration doesn't spill out of the forum and into the Chinese population at large.

For the most part, organizers have done their best to avoid antagonizing their Chinese hosts. Gertrude Mongella, a former Tanzanian lawmaker who chairs the U.N. conference, said she expected the meetings to be orderly and would not "allow any unruly behavior that will disrupt the working of the conference."

Though she rejected the tough Chinese guidelines, she said she understood China's distaste for criticism.

"What else would they have said? I wouldn't allow anybody to come and attack my leader in Tanzania," Mongella said.

It was unclear how many groups and individuals who wanted to attend the meeting had been barred either by rejection of visa applications or simply through bureaucratic delays in the Chinese consular system.

Santiago said organizers have protested to China about its exclusion of groups from the rebellious province of Tibet and from Taiwan, regarded by the Communist government here as a breakaway province of China.

"We want all over the world to know."

When Chinese police approached the woman, she disappeared into the crowd.