Deputy sings praises of rare opera

Lei Tongxia first encountered Longju Drama, a unique traditional opera from Northwest China's Gansu province, when she was 12 and living in a local village. Since then, she has been addicted to it.

"In the beginning, I sang and danced with old villagers for fun, or I just performed it to kill time and wanted to perform with others in this way," said Lei, 50, who is vice-president of the Gansu Dramatists Association. "But to my surprise, the Longju Drama, which is filled with magic power, has influenced my growth since then. I went on to learn a lot about traditional drama and decided to be a professional performer after I went to a local art school."

As a first-class State artist, Lei often took the piece to grassroots areas where such entertainment originated during the Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 220) out of the folk tradition, with narration and singing first accompanied by percussion instruments and later by the melodic sounds of shadow puppetry.