BEIJING -- A feast of Chinese folk ballads and dances were staged on Friday, about two hours before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
Performers dressed in traditional costumes featuring different Chinese localities and ethnic groups took turns to march into the center of the National Stadium, or the "Bird's Nest", in northern Beijing, staging lion dances, drum ballads, acrobatic dances, rolling lanterns and stilts dances, among other folk art forms.
Nearly 30 folk songs and dances are being staged before the Beijing Games raise its curtain to an estimated 100,000 audience at the stadium and an estimated 4 billion TV viewers worldwide.
At least seven of the pieces feature dances of Chinese ethnic groups including Tujia, Miao, Mongolian, Uygur, Tu, Qiang, and Yi.
Flashlights kept flashing from the audience stand as music and drums resounded. Many foreign reporters excitedly applauded and waved arms from their desks to salute the performers.
"They are so beautiful and nice," said a Belgian reporter.
"The opening ceremony story has already been prepared. I come here just to write what I feel and see," he added.
Oliver Holt, with the British newspaper Daily Mirror, said he really enjoyed the performances.
"I am so interested in the person who will light the main flame in the stadium," he said.
