Officials and representatives from various economies for the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting attended a dinner party and enjoyed an art performance held in the National Swimming Center, or the Water Cube, on Nov 10.

Shanxi's dance drama, Fenmo Chunqiu, featuring an artificial whisker and foot-lifting performance, wowed the audience. The gala focused on traditional Chinese culture and ethnic elements, and took a modern approach to showcase China’s charm. The drama was performed by the Huajin Dance Drama Ensemble from Shanxi Art College.

The drama showed Chinese operas through dance and creatively broke boundaries between various art forms. It integrated drama performance with dance, and combined group dances featuring women’s long sleeves and men’s artificial long whiskers. The show reflected the essence of Shanxi’s culture and folk custom.

Link The artificial whiskers performance is one of the basics in opera. Performers usually play with whiskers to show the character’s mood.

The foot-lifting performance is a unique skill in traditional Chinese opera and has been frequently used by female warriors and coquet characters. Actors will wear tiny wooden shoes for ancient bound feet, which would be shown to great effect by the outer embroidered shoes and big colorful pants.

Edited by Liu Yufen and Michael Thai