In 2022, clips of A Tapestry of a Legendary Land went viral online, alerting the world to the immense popularity of Chinese folk dance drama, or wuju in Mandarin.
Since then, the number of new productions has exploded, with young audiences particularly enamoured with the โEastern aestheticsโ these dialogue-free performances featuring traditional Chinese costumes have come to epitomise.
The first blockbuster wuju was 1979โs Rain of Flowers Along the Silk Road.
Created by the Gansu Song and Dance Ensemble, it brought to life the deities painted in the murals of the Mogao Caves โ a site in Dunhuang, in Chinaโs Gansu province, containing some of the finest examples of ancient Buddhist art โ and has been performed from North Korea to the United States.
A Tapestry of a Legendary Land is also connected to Chinese art history.