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The night gala starts

Dances and performances

From the first firework shell marking the beginning of the evening celebrations to the last shell signaling its end, China’s 60th anniversary was an impressive feat of discipline and organization that showed the changes New China has experienced.

Ding Zhenkuan, the pyrotechnician who organized the fiery show, was quoted by the Beijing Daily as saying that the display would send nearly 42,000 shells into the night sky, doubling the number fired at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony last August.

Besides painting the sky with crimson reds, fiery yellows and brilliant whites, pyrotechnics also adorned a 90 meter wide and 25 meter high frame in Tian’anmen Square. When they were ignited they painted a dazzling landscape of China’s mountains, rivers and waterfalls.

In Tian’anmen Square thousands of performers, dancers and singers lit up the ground with their passionate performances just as much as the fireworks lit up the sky. People holding hundreds of special panels above their heads formed an enormous screen that projected and animated large white doves in a scene of peace that could be viewed from thousands of feet in the air. Later, this screen would be used to illustrate the changes China has gone through since 1949.

China’s history unfolded through the dozens of singers who performed songs from the country’s past and present. Hundreds of performers also brought dozens of lions and dragons to life. The creatures, which bring good fortune, danced and snaked through the square with carefully coordinated movements.

The ceremony wraps up with the fourth and final chapter called “Sunshine Everywhere.” The silhouettes of 61 doves symbolizing peace were shot into the air above Beijing as part of over 4,000 performances conducted in the center of the city. A flourish of fireworks brought the ceremony to an end, while at the same time signaling New China is ready to carry on as a united and prosperous country into the future.