Ron Galloway

🇨🇳|#Magnificent 😍 Last night, hundreds of people stood upon the stage. As the music began, they stood apart at first like the initial cracks appearing on the ice during the spring thaw. Then, they converged. I could no longer distinguish one individual from another. Hundreds of bodies merged into a single entity. Bowing low, they formed the ridges of mountain ranges; stretching out, the surging flow of great rivers; gathering close, the vast plains; dispersing, the winding coastline. Bathed in light against a backdrop of flowing digital ink-wash imagery, the line between the living performers and the play of light and shadow blurred. They seemed to be stepping out of ancient paintings—or perhaps stepping right into them. In that moment, there were no dancers on stage. There were only the mountains and rivers of the land. I was reminded of the army depicted in the murals of Dunhuang’s Cave 156 the Guiyi Army. They were the last heroic legion of the Tang Dynasty, a force that reclaimed the eleven prefectures of Hexi; when they marched to war, their banners were so numerous they blotted out the sun. More than a millennium later, young dancers from the Beijing Dance Academy brought that history back to life through their bodies. It was not merely a reenactment; it was a living revival. Then there was Gongsun Daniang. Du Fu wrote poems about her, and the calligrapher Zhang Xu saw his cursive script reach new heights of mastery after witnessing her sword dance. What those dancers did last night was the same thing that woman did twelve hundred years ago: using the human body to breathe new life into the spirit of a civilization. Hundreds of people moved and breathed in unison. The Yangtze, the Yellow River, the Kunlun Mountains, Mount Tai names we have recited since childhood.ceased to be mere words in a textbook at that moment. They became the rise and fall of the bodies before us, the contours of landscapes traced in light. Though seated in the audience, one felt as if one were truly within that vast landscape. As the performance drew to a close, the dancers formed a complete, unified shape. Someone beside me drew a sharp, quiet breath. No one spoke. Yet, I knew we were all thinking the same thing This land is people. Long after the show ended, I kept thinking about it. How long a journey must a nation take, and how many storms must it weather, to be able to speak a single sentence on stage in such a quiet, profound way: “We are here. We have always been here. It remains here.” It is not a "performance." It is a letter written to this land, and to everyone standing upon it. The one who understands have received the message. 🇨🇳