Legendary Landscape Dance Drama
Chinese dance drama ‘The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting’ presents visual feast after international tour.
Legendary Landscape Dance Drama
Chinese dance drama ‘The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting’ presents visual feast after international tour
By Global Times
After an international tour, the slickly-executed Chinese dance poetry drama The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting has returned to the Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center, raising the curtain on a brand event for the China Oriental Performing Arts Group (COPAG), the art group that plays a role as a Chinese cultural envoy to world audiences.
Although this was the 549th performance of the popular dance drama in Beijing, the theater was still teeming with people looking to enjoy this dance drama that blends traditional and contemporary elements. The show was inspired by the masterpiece A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains by the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) painter Wang Ximeng.
Zhang Yi, deputy head of the Arts Department of the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism, attended to the show. He conveyed a message to COPAG, saying he hopes the group will dig deeper into the field of art creation and present more masterpieces that boast the same high quality as the dance drama.
The group also announced that the dance drama will be adapted to more mediums such as a feature film and a picture book. Zhang Han, one of the show’s leading dancers, talked about creating the show, noting that they were determined to guard China’s glittering traditional culture through similar masterpieces.
Read more here.
Poetic Dance
An ancient scroll painting of blue-green landscape transformed into an ethereal dance epic
Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting is a “poetic drama” in seven chapters: Scroll Unfolding, Seal Tracing, Silk Reeling, Minerals Exploring, Brush Making, Ink Grinding, and Painting Alive. In the drama, together with a modern-day Palace Museum researcher, the audience unfolds a scroll in multiple perspectives, wandering in the midst of legendary-like and charming traditional Chinese aesthetics.
It tells a story closely related to “A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers”, a masterpiece of traditional Chinese landscape painting characterised by its depiction of blue and green colors, which has a history of nearly 1,000 years and is said to have been painted by the 18-year-old ‘genius’ Ximeng. By adopting a narrative structure that interweaves space and time, this drama is set at a time when the painting was to be exhibited upon Ximeng’s finishing strokes. By fully devoting himself to the study of the painting, the researcher steps into Ximeng’s inner world, accompanying him during those precious moments when the young painter was making his greatest efforts. Through this experiential journey, the researcher is able to resonate with the painter’s youthful genius, exploring the combination of chance and necessity that led to the unique emergence of “A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers”, and interpreting the sentimental bonds between national cultural relics of the past and people in modern times.
On the stage, a richly-layered picturesque scene is stretched: the moon hangs high in the sky, as it was in the past thousands of years; under the moonlight, the researcher and Xi meng gaze into the other’s eyes; the dedicated researchers of the Palace Museum, along with the craftsmen from ancient times, jointly unveil a harmonious picture where feelings and scenes mingle.
The running of each performance is approximately 2 hours including an intermission of 15 minutes.
Audience is strongly advised to arrive punctually. Latecomers and audiences who leave their seats during the performance will only be admitted at a suitable break.
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Additional tickets for sale
**Due to overwhelming response, there are a limited number of tickets (including box seats with restricted view) for each performance available for sale at URBTIX from 10am on the respective day of performances (5-7 Jan 2024). Each person can purchase a maximum of 2 tickets per transaction on a first come, first served basis.**