BEIJING-- The art performance of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, titled the "Beautiful Olympics", showcased China's 5,000-year civilization and its early encounters with the rest of the world.

Entertainers perform during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8, 2008. The three-hour show at Beijing's iconic "Bird's Nest" national stadium is set to see more than 15,000 performers showcase the nation's ancient history and its rise as a modern power. [Agencies]

Staged in the National Stadium, or the Bird's Nest, in north Beijing on Friday night, the 50-minute show consisted of two parts, namely "Brilliant Civilization" and "Glorious."

The first part "Brilliant Civilization" displayed China's age-old civilization with actors performing Chinese scroll painting, Chinese characters, movable-type printing and the Silk Road.

Dressed in traditional Chinese costumes, hundreds of actors sang the traditional Peking Opera, depicting a festive scene.

Five Chinese long paintings accompanied with performers' singing of Kunqu, an ancient and traditional art selected into world intangible cultural heritage list. It has reproduced the prosperity of ancient China.

The second part, comprising three chapters of Starlight, Nature and Dream, highlighted China's modern achievements and promising future.

A total of 2,008 actors performed Taiji, the most representative shadow boxing in Chinese martial arts, forming an accurate circle which signifies grandness and consummation in the traditional Chinese conception.

When Chinese vocalist Liu Huan and British songstress Sarah Brightman presented the theme song "You and Me" on the top of a gigantic elevating "globe," the 90,000 spectators in the stadium burst into cheers, waving flashlights and banners.

Actors walked, ran and even somersaulted on nine rings covered with the "Lucky Clouds," as if they were free from gravity and full of magic power.

At the end of the spectacle, thousands of volunteers ran into the field carrying pictures of 2,008 smiling faces of children around the world, highlighting the Games' theme of "One World, One Dream."

Sources said that the artistic performance, a core part of Friday's opening ceremony, involved some 16,000 performers.