13. Opera
1. This is the percussion performance of traditional Peking Opera of China. As China has a vast territory with numerous dialects, hundreds of traditional operas have been derived.
2. This operatic percussion performance depicts a festive scene of Terracotta soldiers ' triumphant return.
14. Silk Road
1. The performers are advancing, holding the paper. On the ground is the map of the " Silk Road " and the cultural symbols along the road.
2. Now is the performance of the " Silk Road " well known far and near. More than 2,000 years ago, trade caravans of China set out from Chang ' an (today ' s Xi' an of Shaanxi Province) with expensive silk, crossed Hexi Corridor and entered the European continent. Hence, the " Silk Road " became an im- portant passage for economic and cultural exchanges between China and Western countries.
3. Now is the performance of the " Maritime Silk Route " , showing the grandeur of Zheng He ' s voyage to the West.
4. More than 600 years ago, Zheng He of Ming Dynasty led seven shipping fleets with 27,000 people on board on a long voyage starting off from Quanzhou of China and arrived in Western Asia and Eastern Africa, thus creating the well-known " Maritime Silk Route " .
5. This performer holds an ancient compass in his hand. It is one of the four great inventions of ancient China.
15. Music
1. The actor is singing Kunqu, which is an ancient and traditional art and has been selected into world intangible cultural heritage list.
2. On the ground are the five long paintings most famous in China, finished respectively in Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasty.
16. Starlight
1. The pianist and the child are offering a romantic tune together, welcoming a brand-new age. This is the Chinese young pianist Lang Lang. The girl playing with him is Li Muzi only 5 years old. She began learning to play the piano at the age of 4.
2. The ancient paintings extend in the endless starlight, indicating a more splendid age of today.
3. The color tone for the modern performance turns from black and white to bright colors.
4.1,000 performers build a "bird 's nest " , towards which a lovely kite flies through in the sky.
17. Nature
17.1 Taijiquan is the most representative shadow boxing in Chinese martial arts, characterized by the “ combina- tion of the dynamic and static and the interdepen- dence of hardness and softness. ”
17.2 The performance via multi-media demonstrates the ancient traditional philosophical concept in Chinese martial arts: the relationship between man and nature.
17.3 “The torrent dropping three thousand feet / straight down to the valley floor / I think it must be the milky way / spilling to the earth from the heavens.”This is the expression of the poetic flavor of the famous lines by Li Bai, a poet during the Tang Dynasty.
17.4 The Eight Diagrams of Taiji symbolize eight natural phenomena, including heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire, mountain and swamp and bringing out the changes of all things on the earth.
17.5 A total of 2,008 Taiji performers form a circle which means grandness and consummation in the traditional Chinese conception. The present array is called “Round Heaven and Square Earth.”
17.6 The children are coloring the ancient Chinese paintings of nature green, expressing the idea of environmental protection which is also the key concept of Taiji - unity of man and nature.