Hair we go

While ballets such as Raise the Red Lantern have drawn widespread global attention in recent years, China's two trademark repertoires in the decades after 1960 were The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl, of which the former was the more famous.

In 1964, choreographers and dancers from the Shanghai Dance Academy created an eight-act ballet based on a Chinese opera also called The White-Haired Girl. The next year, it premiered at the Shanghai Arts Festival.

The ballet tells of a peasant girl, Xi'er, whose father is beaten to death by the local landlord because he is unable to pay his debts. She is taken by force to work in the landlord's home and she finally escapes into the mountain forests. Her fianc joins the Eight Route Army and returns three years later to liberate the village and rescue the girl. By then, Xi'er has endured such suffering that her long black hair turns white. She is found in a cave by her fianc.