At the invitation of Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, The Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, a classical national dance drama, will be performed at the National Centre for the Performing Arts at the end of July.
This will mark the show’s 1,600th performance since it first opened at the Great Hall of the People in 1979 as a part of the 30th anniversary National Day festivities. More than thirty leaders from Chinese central government, as well as foreign leaders, VIPs, ambassadors to China, and social celebrities attended. The show was awarded the first prize and highly commanded by China’s Cultural Ministry. It became so popular that over the next thirty years, an estimated 3.5 million people saw Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road.
To best embody Chinese characteristics, the dance drama includes many musical elements, including parts of ancient tunes like Moonlit Night on a Spring River. The piece also features a Pipa player (a performer who plucks a string instrument with a fretted fingerboard, sort of like a Chinese guitar) who plays the instrument by putting it on her back. This is considered one of the most beautiful, graceful, and challenging parts in all of Chinese dances.
The choreography of The Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road was inspired from Dunhuang murals, a famous Buddhist cultural site in western China’s Gansu province. Buddhist monks would paint beautiful pictures on the walls of caves in Dunhuang, which was a major Silk Road crossroads between China and Central Asia. The paintings reflected the wide experiences of the monks, who were usually travelers along the Silk Road.
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