Dance festival celebrates ethnic unity

"Throughout its history, Xinjiang has been marked by a high degree of cultural exchange between the East and the West, due to its location along the Silk Road," said Xu Ruijun, Party secretary of the department of culture and tourism of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, in Beijing last week, adding that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative, which makes the 6th China Xinjiang International Folk Dance Festival a significant platform for cultural exchanges among international artists.

The opening performance will be Chinese dance drama Zhang Qian, produced and performed by the Xinjiang Art Theatre. According to the dance drama's director, Xing Shimiao, the dance drama follows the epic journey of Zhang Qian, a royal emissary of China's Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), whose expeditions paved the way to what later became the Silk Road — the historic trading network linking the East and the West, with world-binding influences expanding to the cultural, social and other aspects that continue to influence today.

"It took us about four years to finally stage the dance drama, which combines contemporary dance, ballet, traditional Chinese dance and Chinese folk dance," says Xing. "The version that will be staged during the 6th China Xinjiang International Folk Dance Festival will be an updated version. For example, a large treadmill, which is about 7 meters long and 2.8 meters wide, will be installed onstage, since the core of the dance drama is about Zhang Qian and his team traveling to the West. Along the journey, they met people of different cultures and they communicated."

The dance drama was premiered last year. Xing notes that the dancers of the Xinjiang Art Theatre, which was founded in 1949, are of different ethnic groups, such as Han, Hui, Uygur, Uzbek and Tajik.

One of the best-selling Chinese dance dramas, Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting, will also be staged during the upcoming festival on Thursday and Friday.

Choreographed by Han Zhen and Zhou Liya, it was inspired by A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains, a classic artwork exhibited at the Palace Museum in Beijing, which was created by artist Wang Ximeng during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) when the artist was 18 years old. It is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important works in the history of Chinese fine art. The 11-meter-long scroll painting is a record of people's lives and the natural scenery of that time, mixing realism with creative imagination. There are mountains, rivers, villages, ports, temples and pavilions. The painting is housed at the museum.