Passion, desire and despair

A-month-and-a-half after her dance show at Poly Theater, Jin Xing returns to the capital's stage with Carmina Burana at the National Center for the Performing Arts. The dance is the major attraction of the China International Youth Arts Festival run by the Ministry of Culture.

Choreographed to Carl Orff's dramatic trajectory, the show premiered at Shanghai's Grand Theater in 2000 and toured at the Palais des Congres in Paris in 2005.

Jin says the dance is "full of passion, of desire and despair - emotions which all human beings share." Sixteen dancers from the Jin Xing Dance Company will be dressed in Roman tunics and colorful skirts designed by Mo Xiaomin. They will perform in front of a huge chorus composed of the Silicon Valley Ai-Yue Chorus, the National Taiwan Alumni Chorus from the US, the Stanford Choral Union and the Los Angles Children's Chorus. Cai Jindong takes the baton of the Stanford Symphony Orchestra to bring to life both the delicate and bombastic passages in Orff's famous score.