Chinese dancers make history with dance drama based on Indian epic Ramayana

Beijing, Jan 25 (PTI) A troupe of Chinese dancers made history on Saturday by performing “Adi Kavya - The First Poem", a dance drama based on Indian epic Ramayana.

The drama directed by noted Chinese Bharatanatyam exponent Jin Shanshan featured a cast of about 80 talented local performers, many of them learning the ancient South Indian art form.

The drama was inspired by the Chinese translation of Ramayana by Prof Ji Xianlin. This was the first time a Ramayana-based dance drama was staged on such a large scale in China.

The dance drama supported by the Indian Embassy Beijing was attended by among others Chinese Vice Minister Sun Haiyan from International Department of the ruling Communist Party, Luo Zhaohuai and head of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) and Indian Ambassador to China, Pradeep Rawat and a host of Chinese and Indian officials.

Ambassador Rawat said Saturday’s performance is very special.

“It is the first time that the epic is brought to life in China at this scale. We have around 80 performers, all of them from China, from five years to 80 years of age with majority of them performing on such a large stage for the first time in life,” he said.

Their passion for Indian culture is a common thread binding them. Many of them were either strangers to each other or mere acquaintances, but during practice sessions, lasting for over two months, they have become like a family, he said.

The dance drama was staged ahead of Foreign Secretary level talks on Sunday to discuss the normalisation of ties between the two countries.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri will take part in the two-day talks.

Indian art and dance forms Bharatanatyam and Kathak, besides a host of musical instruments, gained traction in China over the decades with several Chinese lovers of dance devoting their lives to learn the classical art forms in India.

In August last year, 13-year-old girl Lei Muzi held her first “Arangetram”, the graduation ceremony of Bharatanatyam, in front of celebrated Bharatanatyam dancer Leela Samson, Indian diplomats and a large crowd of Chinese fans, becoming the first Chinese dancer to do so.

It was the first ever Arangetram by a student fully trained in China and performed in China, according to Jin Shanshan who trained Lei.

Saturday's dance drama on Ramayana followed a symposium held in November last year by the Indian Embassy in Beijing in which Chinese scholars highlighted the footprints of Ramayana epic in the Chinese literature in the past.

At the Symposium on “Ramayana- A Timeless Guide”, a host of Chinese scholars associated with longstanding research on religious influences made candid presentations tracing the historical routes through which Ramayana reached China, its influence on Chinese art and literature.

“As a classic intertwining the religious and the secular world, the influence of Ramayana has grown ever more significantly through cross-cultural transmission,” Dr Jiang Jingkui, Professor and Dean of the Institute for International and Area Studies of Tsinghua University, had said at the symposium. PTI KJV SCY SCY SCY