The large-scale dance drama "Dynamic Yunnan" has been an outstanding innovation on the Chinese stage in recent years. Dynamically incorporating traditional beauty and modern flavors with a reintegration of the most original and rustic dance elements of Yunnan, the programme breathes new life into Yunnan culture.

Primitive, unsophisticated folk dances and a fresh artistic concept converge in the programme, giving audiences a unique "Yunnan Impression." Sixty-two drums and 120 masks of strong ethnic characteristics are incorporated in the performance. Other props, like a "praying stone" and bull's head are taken from real life. A 70-percent cast of ethnic-minority performers and enigmatic lighting and stage effects also add to the programme's appeal.

  Prelude

Birth of the Earth: There is no sun or moon when the heaven and earth are one and the world is in chaos. In the darkness a lightning bolt from the east lights up part of the stage, and another illuminates the west. Then, everything comes to life.

  Scene One: The Sun

The theme of the first scene centers on the drum. Yunnan boasts the most drum tales in China, where the drum is not only perceived as a musical instrument, but also as a totem. It symbolizes the matrix or female. Drums can be made of leather, stone, copper and wood. Different ethnic groups categorize drums as Sun, Manggu, Reba and Dabei drums. The Va Ethnic Group has "male" and "female" wooden drums and a sacrificial ceremony usually precedes the making of a drum.

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