Venue: National Centre for the Performing Arts - Theatre
Dates: June 30-July 03, 2018
About
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau features towering mountains standing in snow-capped surroundings. In the past thousands of years, the Han and Tibetan peoples had to rely on human piggybacks and pack animals to carry goods, while trekking to and fro in the bumpy region. This used to be the most formidable journey for anyone. The past vanishes like the wind thoroughly after the completion of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which is hailed as the greatest miracle in the history of railway construction. Since then, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is no longer inaccessible, where people can live and work in peace. Happy sounds of singing can be heard in the surroundings. Under this magnificent historical background, the dance drama tells moving stories on the railway corps and Tibetans under construction of Qinghai-Tibet Railway in the late 1970s, and conveys hope and belief, life and death, homeland and dream, love and power.
As a key project of “Reform and Opening-up” of China, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway helps Tibetans get along with other ethnic groups in the country. Qinghai-Tibet Railway is not only an ascendant road towards the modernization of the snow-capped plateau, but crystallizes hard-working and wise Chinese people’s continuous efforts for creating extraordinary performance, which is hailed as “The Road to Heaven.” The NCPA pays tribute to its construction. On the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of China’s Reform and Opening-up, an epoch-making work, which eulogizes friendship between the Han and Tibetan people and demonstrates the great achievements of reform and opening-up under the storyline that three-generation people “uphold original ambition” and insist on building the railway, will be presented on July 1st, 2018. This work brings together the top-class domestic creation and starting crew and renowned dancers, and emerges as a realistic national dance drama with sincere emotions and distinct colours.
Synopsis
In late 1970s, LU Tian, a young soldier from the Railway Engineering Corps who was working on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway construction site with his comrade-in-arms, was caught up in the most difficult dilemma of his life: on one hand he hoped to follow the last wills of his father and his own determination to extend the railway to Lhasa, on the other hand his mother wanted him to retire from the army and return home in the city to take part in the college entrance examination, which was just restored. LU acquainted himself with Yangjin and Suolang, a pair of Tibetan sister and brother and a group of simple Tibetan herdsmen. LU fell in love with this land. However, fate played a cruel trick on him. When he was more determined to stay on the land, a notice of retirement from the army was issued to him.
A sudden and strong earthquake struck. LU, who had already packed up his belongings and ready to return to his home city, rushed back without any hesitation to the tunneling site to rescue his comrade-in-arms, and they all sacrificed their lives together. He was laid in final peace on this land, quietly safeguarding the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and the magical railroad.
