First performed in 1979, Tales of the Silk Road caused a great stir across China. This epoch-making creative work has been recognized as one of the most brilliant dance dramas in the new historical period of China. A collective creation, Tales of the Silk Road involved some of the best choreographers and directors of Chinese dance drama.

Tales of the Silk Road is a story that happened during one of China's most prosperous ages, the Tang Dynasty (618-907), with a strong flavor of the profound Dunhuang culture. It is an ode to friendship along the ancient Silk Road.

The prologue starts with a piece of melodious music, with Apsaras flying between colorful clouds. Amid the sound of camel rings, a team of Persian merchants passes along the Silk Road. A painter, "Magic Brush" Zhang, rescued Inuse, a Persian businessman who fainted but his beloved daughter Ying Niang was snatched by a bandit named Dou Hu.

In Act One, Ying Niang had grown up and become a street dancer. Inuse happened to see her and redeemed her back to her father. In Act Two, "Magic Brush" Zhang was painting his daughter in dance in the Mogao Caves. One of the paintings, "playing the Pipa (a plucked string instrument with a fretted fingerboard) by putting the instrument on her back", was extremely eye-catching. A local official Shi Cao, greedy for Ying Niang's beauty, wanted to take her as a concubine. "Magic Brush" Zhang had to entrust Ying Niang to Inuse's care.

Act Three expresses Ying Niang's strong longing for her father far away. In Act Four, "Magic Brush", Zhang missed his daughter so much that he dreamed of the colorful world painted by himself. In Act Five Inuse was named an envoy of the Persians to the Tang Dynasty and led Ying Niang back to her home, but official Shi Cao had an evil plan to help the Persian merchants. "Magic Brush" Zhang learned about the plot and lighted the beacon-fire for help but was killed in the desert. In Act Six, Ying Niang, assisted by Inuse, sneaked into the Multi-national Trade Fair and disclosed the evil deeds of Shi Cao. A senior Tang official learned the truth and Shi Cao was beheaded. In the epilogue, the Silk Road resounds with the song of friendship.

Tales of the Silk Road had a positive theme: extolling friendship and an open society while castigating the evil forces, which best satisfied people's demand at a new historical period in China. The work had a novel Subject and style, with much emphasis on stage settings, choreography and the unique characteristic of the art of Dunhuang.

The staff of Tales of the Silk Road researched the dance murals in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes with the assistance of experts and scholars. They selected certain dance designs from the 2,000-odd colored statues and more than 40,000-square-meter murals in the grottoes. Further refinements and improvements were made to those static images that were revived on the stage and helped establish the dance drama's unique dance language. Following Tales of the Silk Road, a Dunhuang-style Chinese dance began to thrive, which greatly enriched and expanded the classical dance of China.

Tales of the Silk Road had been awarded the first prize in a nationwide arts contest, which was held to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and was listed as one of the Dance Classics of the Chinese Nation in the 20th Century.