Soaring Wings makes US debut

NEW YORK - Chinese dance drama Soaring Wings: Journey of the Crested Ibis recently premiered at the David H. Koch Theater in New York City's Lincoln Center.

The dance drama, produced by the Shanghai Dance Theater, explores the fate of crested ibises, beautiful and rare creatures that symbolized happiness and blessings in ancient China.

Centuries ago, humans lived in harmony with these birds - reserved, elegant, sacred and noble, yet also sensitive, vulnerable and occasionally distant. But with modernization and urbanization, the natural environment for the crested ibises began to deteriorate and they became an endangered species in the mid-20th century.