Sisters of Yinan

Chinese ballet dancers, including Ma Xiaodong, Wang Qimin and Hou Shuang, will perform in the show.

Inspired by three well-known stories of the "Red Sisters", the ballet is divided into the chapters Bridge Under Fire, The Virgin Bride and Passions of Yimeng.

"The story of the Yimeng Mountains, especially the 'red sisters', are well-known among Chinese audiences. The folk song, Yimeng Tune, is also well-known, which depicts the beautiful natural scenery of the county," says Xu Gang, director and choreographer of Yimeng - A Ballet in Three Chapters.

He says in 1995, he danced in the lead role in the ballet, Ode to the Yimeng Mountains. In 2017, Xu choreographed a dance piece based on the same ballet for director Feng Xiaogang's movie, Youth, which chronicles the lives of members of a Chinese military art troupe from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Xu and dancers of the National Ballet of China visited Yinan in 2017 to discover more stories about the "Red Sisters". As a result, the dance drama Love for Yimeng was produced. It premiered in Beijing in May that year.

"We lived in the village and talked to the locals, including some people in their 90s. I was very touched by the stories they told us," Xu says.

In the first movement of the three-chapter ballet, Xu tells the story of 32 local women who helped soldiers to cross a river. They stood in the river and used planks from wooden doors to build a bridge, which had been blasted by the enemy.

The second part tells the story of a young local woman, who married a Red Army soldier. However, her husband left with the other troops on their wedding day. The wife received no word about her husband until 12 years later when she learned about his death. The wife had not remarried and adopted some children who were orphaned after their parents died in battle.

The third chapter is based on Xu's 2017 ballet, Love for Yimeng, telling the story of a heroic woman, Ming Deying, who saved the lives of many soldiers.