The dance poetry drama "Only Green" visited the United States for three times and New York for the second time, and the Northern Song Dynasty's "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" was slowly unfolded at Lincoln Center

China News Service, Beijing, September 7 (Reporter Ying Ni) The reporter learned from the China Oriental Performing Arts Group that from September 4 to 6, local time, the dance poetry drama "Only Green" will go to the United States for the third time and New York for the second time. The mountains and mountains in the Northern Song Dynasty's "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" are slowly unfolding at the David Kirk Theater of Lincoln Center in New York.

The dance poetry drama "Only Green" is based on the famous painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" from the Northern Song Dynasty collected by the Palace Museum, and unfolds the story through a narrative that intersects time and space. The play looks back at history from the perspective of a modern "Scroll Exhibitor" and enters the creative world of the young painter Ximeng. Through seven chapters: unfolding scrolls, asking for seal scripts, singing silk, searching for stones, practicing brushwork, tempering ink, and entering paintings, it eloquently tells the persistence and dedication of generations of craftsmen behind the birth of ancient paintings. The dance drama uses the body as a pen and ink to transform the endless landscape images in the scroll into modern stage expressions, conveying the Chinese aesthetic taste and craftsmanship rooted in mountains and rivers.

Facing the enthusiastic audience, the actors returned to the stage many times to express their thanks. Photo courtesy of China Oriental Entertainment Group

As the light and shadow on the stage slowly flowed, the landscape artistic conception of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" was slowly unfolded at the David Kirk Theater at Lincoln Center. Ximeng worked hard to unfold the scrolls, and the people traveled through the past and present. The green dancers transformed into mountains and rivers, and the craftsmen tempered the mountains and rivers with pen and ink. The moving story of the dialogue between ancient and modern times was eloquently told. The audience responded enthusiastically and applauded for a long time, and the actors returned to the stage many times to express their thanks.

Foreign audiences crossed cultural barriers and understood the stories behind the paintings from the dance narratives. They resonated with the romance of mountains and rivers of the ancient Chinese and were deeply moved by the implicit and majestic oriental stage aesthetics. Many Chinese audiences lamented that seeing the mountains and rivers paintings engraved in the national memory in a foreign theater gave rise to real emotional resonance and a strong sense of cultural belonging.

It is understood that the show has completed two North American tours before. It will land in the United States for the first time at the end of 2024, visiting New York and San Diego successively; in the summer of 2025, it will start a multi-city tour in North America, passing through Vancouver, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Houston, and has received a lot of recognition from local art circles, ordinary people and overseas Chinese.

Poster for the "Fenghua Contemporary" Chinese outstanding drama performance. Photo provided by the organizer

As a key national cultural export project, "Only Green" uses dance, the borderless artistic language, to build a bridge of spiritual communication between the people of China and the United States. The works transcend language barriers, bring Chinese context and Eastern aesthetics to the top international art stage, and become a vivid carrier of cultural exchanges between China and the United States in the new era.

After the performance of the dance poetry drama "Only Green" in New York in 2026, Jiangsu Grand Theater's original national dance drama "Dream of Red Mansions" will take over the stage from September 11th to 13th. The two national-style high-quality dramas will join hands to complete the "Feng Hua Contemporary" Chinese excellent drama performance. (over)