Zhang Yu JeniZhang13@163.com SHENZHEN dance drama “Wing Chun” and four Shenzhen-produced songs made an impressive showing at the 2024 Spring Festival Gala in Beijing on Feb. 9. The gala, staged and televised by the China Media Group (CMG), is a four-and-half-hour-long comprehensive TV show consisting of singing and dancing, opera, sketch comedy, crosstalk, martial arts and acrobatics, lasting until the early morning of the first day of the Chinese New Year. “I was really happy with the performance of the ‘Wing Chun’ actors, the dance and the energy they brought this year,” Zach Mills from the U.S., who is now living and working in Shenzhen, told Shenzhen Daily after watching the gala. “It was great to be able to see them share Shenzhen’s new cultural identity not only with China, but with the world,” Mills said, adding that he had watched the gala several years in a row in the U.S. and was thrilled to watch it in China this year. “I was almost in tears seeing ‘Wing Chun’ being performed at the gala. This is fantastic and stunning,” said Don Rechtman from the U.S. “It’s a major leap on Shenzhen’s cultural development,” he added. “Wing Chun” offers an artistic feast that combines martial arts and dance, while also ingeniously accommodating Chinese intangible cultural heritage, including the martial art of Wing Chun and gambiered gauze. It has been lauded as a creative, high-quality dance drama rarely seen on the Chinese stages in recent years, and wowed Singaporean audience members when it made its overseas debut in September last year. The drama also charmed Hong Kong audience members with five performances Jan. 4-7. In addition to “Wing Chun,” four Shenzhen-produced songs, including one debuting original ballad, were sung at the gala that provided a visual and sonic feast for global audience members. It’s worth noting that Yi Qunlin, a 58-year-old construction worker from Shenzhen, was in the crowd watching the gala’s live performance in Beijing. Yi went viral on the internet after improvising the piano on the streets of Shenzhen, and later, he received an invitation from CMG to watch the gala on site in Beijing. The Spring Festival Gala has been taken place every year since 1983. For many Chinese people, it has been an essential element of the celebrations to ring in the Chinese New Year with family members gathering around their TVs, ready to catch every moment of the captivating performances. The main venue of this year’s Spring Festival Gala was located in Beijing, with subvenues set up in Shenyang in Liaoning Province, Changsha in Hunan Province, Xi’an in Shaanxi Province, and Kashgar in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. | 