A jade pig-dragon suddenly comes alive. Women from a Tang Dynasty (618-907) painting glide across the stage. A courtly crane takes flight, while the sound of an ancient guqin (a seven-string Chinese zither) and bronze bells fills the air.
In the dance drama Ancient Hues: National Treasures of Liaoning, 17 precious artifacts from the Liaoning Provincial Museum are transformed from silent objects into living images through dance, theater, poetry, and multimedia.
The production, premiered in May 2025, was created by the Liaoning Song and Dance Troupe in collaboration with the Liaoning Provincial Museum, and has toured several Chinese cities.
It will be staged in Beijing on Sept 15 and 16 as part of the ongoing 7th National Ethnic Minority Art Festival.
For playwright Ma Lin and director Ma Yuli, the challenge was not a lack of material, but an abundance of it.
"The museum has so many treasures," says Ma Lin. "The question was how to bring them together without making the production feel like a collection of unrelated dances."
The answer was the museum-night concept: A young visitor named Moxuan enters the museum and encounters a mysterious guide — a personification of the typical Hongshan-culture jade pig-dragon, a dragon with pig-like features. Together, they lead the audience through different galleries and historical periods.
The Neolithic Hongshan culture flourished in northern China about 6,500 to 5,000 years ago. Named after the Hongshanhou site in Chifeng, North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, it extended across parts of present-day Inner Mongolia and Liaoning and Hebei provinces.
The jade pig-dragon was chosen not only for its importance as a signature object of Hongshan culture, but also for its playful shape. Rather than presenting it as a solemn symbol of an ancient civilization, the production turns it into an animated, witty character.
"We wanted a creature who could bring a sense of life and humor to the stage," says Ma Yuli. "Otherwise, audiences might feel as if they were simply coming to watch a typical museum performance."
Moxuan, meanwhile, represents a younger generation increasingly drawn to museums and traditional culture. Their encounters create a dialogue between the present and the distant past.
The production unfolds in four sections: calligraphy, painting, music, and artifacts, comprising 10 independent dance pieces.
Among the featured treasures housed at the Liaoning Provincial Museum are the Tang Dynasty (618-907) painting Court Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers, the legendary traditional Chinese painting masterpiece Rui He Tu (Auspicious Cranes) created by Zhao Ji (1082-1135), who was also known as Emperor Huizong during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), and the Jiuxiao Huanpei, a Tang Dynasty guqin.
Many of the objects offered unexpected possibilities for movement, says the director of the dance drama.
In the Auspicious Cranes segment, dancers translate the birds' flight into sweeping choreography. Court Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers is more restrained, with the dancers reinterpreting the six aristocratic w o m e n's elegant poses depicted in the classic painting.
