Chongqing - What makes a city important and famous all over the world? It is not only tourist attractions but also culture. Recently, a dance drama named after Du Fu, a prominent Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty, is very hot in China and some Asian countries. The drama presents the life story of Du Fu in 100 minutes with beautiful dances, songs, music, and magnificent stage performances.

The Du Fu dance drama is created by Chongqing Song and Dance Ensemble Co. Ltd. and other top teams. After four revisions, it has incredible background music and stage effects, carrying off the 10th Lotus Award, China's top award for dancing, and other domestic art awards.

After four revisions, Du Fu won numerous awards both home and abroad.

As we all know, Three Gorges is located partly in Chongqing. Many poems describe Chongqing, especially about the area of the Three Gorges. From historical documents, some famous poets had a period of depressive time in Chongqing, such as Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Liu Yuxi, Huang Tingjian, Lu You, and more. Among which, Du Fu, is one who wrote lots of poems in Chongqing. He had lived in Kui Zhou, the present Fengjie County of Chongqing, for 21 months. During his stay in Chongqing, he berhymed 462 poems, accounting for one-third of poems in his life.

Unique and brand-new performance highlights the drama

Du Fu Drama has a new performing form, in which the story is constructed by dance. The whole masterpiece breaks the traditional plot narrative performing form but uses several individual dances to connect a singular narrative. This creates an environmental space of metaphorical psychological examination, highlighting Du Fu’s inner feelings, emotions and inner world. These changes can reveal the background of the era and reflect the social and cultural background or history of Du Fu’s poets.

Du Fu has a new performing form, in which the story is constructed by dance

Moreover, in this dance-drama, there are "two" Du Fu, one is the young Du Fu while another is the senior one, which can be understood as a time-travel film. "It is a new performing form, similar to montage or flashbacks of a film. In traditional Chinese dance drama, there is no performance like this – two actors to play the same role. Meanwhile, this dance drama shapes two different spaces in one period time," said Li Jin, the actor of the senior Du Fu.

Two actors to  play the same role, the left one is Li Geng while the right one is Li Jin on the poster

The dance drama uses the twin actors, Li Geng and Li Jin, to carve the younger Du Fu and the senior one respectively in different eras. The contradictions of these two characters deepen the theme of the performance, which is Du Fu’s love for his country and society — combining the two different roles of Du Fu, the dance drama sorts out the clues of the “space dialogue” between them. It highlights the contradiction between Du Fu’s thoughts and social reality by designing contrasting dance movements.

The powerful group in the dance drama Du Fu.

The amazing dance drama goes global

Li Ren Xing, a famous poem by Du Fu, describes beautiful imperial ladies in the Tang Dynasty. Through writing their charming gestures and luxury dressing, the poem reveals the corruption of the upper class of the empire during that time. In this dance drama, Li Ren Xing is adapted into a dance episode, which is an essential part of the whole performance. This episode was nominated by the 10th Lotus Award for classical dance and became one of the hottest dancing episodes on TikTok, with a total number of broadcasts exceeded 800 million.

In this dance drama, Li Ren Xing is adapted into a dance episode, which is a very important part of the whole performance

It presents a group of beauties, led by the imperial concubine, to show the brilliance of the Tang Dynasty. "In fact, as an actress, I feel more stressful rather than overconfident because audiences require more professional performance skills," said Guo Yayun, the actress of the imperial concubine. "After this episode becomes well-known, more people will focus on Li Ren Xing so that I will get higher and higher requirements for myself."

The rehearsal of Li Ren Xing dance

With this hard work mindset, the dance drama went global. Du Fu showed up on the stage this June in South Korea, and it was popular there. However, why is Du Fu so popular, even in other regions of the world?

Huang Meng, Chairman of Chongqing Song and Dance Ensemble Co. Ltd., said, “Du Fu and his poems, as well as the culture of the Tang Dynasty, occupy a special place in Chinese 5,000-year history. The influence of Chinese culture, especially Tang culture, is the basis of fame for Du Fu.” South Korea is a country influenced by Chinese culture a lot so it makes the dance drama easily understood there. Besides, China National Arts Fund supported the masterpiece a lot.  

The rehearsal of the dance drama Du Fu

"We will have five to six performances of Du Fu in South Korea in 2020. In addition to South Korea, we are preparing for the Japanese market, extending to Southeast Asia regions, which are influenced by Chinese culture," said Huang Meng.

In the future, Chongqing Song and Dance Ensemble Co. Ltd. plan to promote Du Fu dance drama to European and American, and more places in the world.  The team strives to promote Chinese culture and tourism to the world.

"We can do it because art has no borders," said Li Jin.