Changes in literature and art in the last five years

Innovative approach and greater authenticity mark surge in creativity, Yang Yang reports.

One night, more than 1,300 years ago, 14 plump girls, gorgeously dressed, happily made their way to a banquet, where they were going to play musical instruments for the emperor. This scenario is the plot of the dance Tang Yong (glazed ceramic figures of the Tang Dynasty) created by Chen Lin, a choreographer with the Zhengzhou Song and Dance Theater in Central China's Henan province.

Inspired by relics unearthed in Henan which date back to the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties, the work was nominated for the Lotus Award in 2020, China's top award for professional dancers.

During this year's Spring Festival, an adaptation of the dance, A Tang Dynasty Banquet, was shown as part of a gala on Henan TV, going viral once it was released online. On Kuaishou, a short-video platform, the show, which runs for less than six minutes, had been watched more than 2.7 billion times by mid-March.

When the production team adapted it for the screen, they reduced the dance to five minutes, and used 5G technology and augmented reality to combine virtual scenes with the stage, so that the dancers appear to be performing in various museums.

The dancers perform against a projection of national treasures: Fuhao Xiao Zun (owl-shaped Fuhao alcohol vessels), tri-colored glazed ceramics of the Tang Dynasty, Zanhua Shinyu Tu (court ladies adorning their hair with flowers) and Qianli Jiangshan Tu (a panorama of rivers and mountains), among others.