"We went along this waterfront again and again, experiencing it over and over," she says. "The first thing we had to understand was the everyday life of the people who live beside the water. There is a real sense of life here. At the same time, we had to get the distinctive Jiangnan character right."
For Wu, that character is not simply about reproducing traditional architecture or familiar cultural symbols. The team also wanted to capture the everyday atmosphere of a city shaped by water while giving audiences a carefully paced nighttime experience.
"Every second has to be considered," she says. "We have to know when the music should reach people's hearts, when they should look at what is in front of them, and when they should look into the distance."
Visual director Wang Zhigang says adapting digital artwork to the boat and the surrounding urban environment presented a major challenge.
The team had to consider how images would appear in a real cityscape, rather than treating the production as a conventional screen-based show.
Chief director Qin Yiwen says the team spent more than a year in Suzhou, visiting gardens, walking through old lanes, and talking with locals to understand the city's character.
Qin notes that Suzhou's beauty often lies in carefully arranged details rather than grand gestures.
"When we come to a place like this, we don't dare to speak loudly. It is so beautiful," he says.
That sensitivity influenced how the team approached the production, from the selection of cultural references to the images, music and choreography.
Qin says the aim was to create a work that international visitors could appreciate while retaining the qualities that make Suzhou distinctive.
"We don't want to offer a spectacle alone," he says. "We want visitors to be surrounded by Jiangnan scenery and, more importantly, to carry the feeling of Jiangnan in their hearts."
Yang Lan says the production's visual language also draws on qualities often associated with traditional Chinese aesthetics, including movement, restraint, and room for imagination.
"Eastern aesthetics have a particular quality: movement, blank space and lingering resonance," she says. "You can see this fully expressed in Suzhou's gardens."
The floating theater is part of a broader effort by Suzhou Historic City Group to expand water-based tourism and connect the city's waterways with its historical districts and cultural attractions.
The group has developed 28 water-tourism routes, including itineraries that link railway arrivals with water travel and routes that connect the moat around the ancient city with its inner waterways.
The aim is to give visitors more ways to experience the city by using historical stories, cultural activities, and different forms of entertainment to broaden water tourism's appeal.
For Yang, the final chapter of the night tour expresses what she hopes visitors will take away from the experience.
Drawing on the poem Song of the Peach Blossom Cottage by Tang Bohu — the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) painter, calligrapher and poet also known as Tang Yin — the theme song Peach Blossom Immortal evokes the centuries-old image of the peach blossom to offer contemporary audiences weighed down by anxiety and pressure a moment of ease and composure, according to Yang.
"We hope people who are usually under pressure and anxiety can relax their brows, their minds, and feel more at ease. If your heart is at ease, everyone can be a peach blossom immortal. In this way, the past and the present resonate with each other."
