Children are encouraged to play with their shadows in the workshop. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Ripples of inspiration

The center put on a performance in March of The Old Man and the Sea, based on Ernest Hemingway's novel of the same title, at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Before the drama began, Ke ran an interactive education experiment with the audience. He dropped a sandbag, a wooden ball and a pingpong ball on stage. He then asked the audience to imitate and compare the movements of the objects.

Five audience members were invited to go onstage to perform their imitations, showing their observation and imagination. Rolling or jumping, they were all lauded by Ke and the audience applauded wildly.

The play began shortly after. On the simply set stage, the sea and the sky were projected onto the background, while wooden boards, a lamp, a rope and a small statue of the Virgin Mary served as a boat. An inflated balloon represented the moon. The body language of the actors completed the theatrical effects. For instance, when pulled taut by the actors, the rope became a fishing pole and the struggle between the old fisherman and the giant marlin was presented in the form of wresting.

The imagination of the audience is vital for the stage, Ke says. In part this is because of obvious limitations－a wild raging sea cannot be transported onto the stage－and imagination gives added value to the audience.

"We don't want to present the stage as an obvious answer, we want it to collaborate with audiences' imagination and create even more possibilities of image and understanding," Ke says.