In the morning, I go into the dancing room, take a deep breath and look at my

reflection in the mirror. When music rings my body starts moving spontaneously and
it feels like being in a different world. With every spinning and jumping, I’m a wisp
of wind through mountains and valleys, or a fluttering butterfly around flowers.
In the high noon, the rays of mid-day sun clearly illuminate the melancholy,
tenderness and tenaciousness on my face when expressing joys and sorrows, rises and
falls in history.
When a few strands of orange-red afterglow drift in the sky at sunset, I recall the
most unforgettable moments in my lifetime, finding peace and tranquility in slow
movement.
The music stops, my dance ends with elegance and I feel fully alive.
Classical dance has a healing power. When I’m depressed, I dance for a while, and
it blows away the gloomy clouds in my heart. When I am restless, it brings serenity
and reason. In discovering such strong but gentle force surging through my body, I
come to realize that the essence of classical dance comes from nature and life. That’s
why circularity is the basic attribute that permeates all gestures and actions in
classical dance. There are no pauses, and the motions are round and continuous to
show vitality and eternity in nature. Chinese dancers and choreographers have listened
attentively to nature and the human world for millennia, and created colorful contents
interwoven with other artistic forms in traditional Chinese culture such as poetry,
drama, literature and martial arts.
So learning Chinese classical dance is more than physical movement, it gives us a
language to communicate with nature and people beyond space and time, to embrace
the vastness, diversity and wisdom in traditional culture. In recent years, there are the
Journey of a Legendary Landscape, Confucious and Flying Apsaras and other
performances that portray green mountains and rivers, the vicissitude in history and
spiritual pursuit of ancient Chinese. The revival of classic dance is a returning to the
harmony between human and nature, to the philosophy it carries.
In modern life, when we have lost our compassion and love, classical dance is able
to clean the worldly greed, vanity and impetuosity as we slow down, enjoy dancing
and appreciate this silent language.
Chinese dancer Yang Liping once said, life never ends, and dance never stops. I
believe the enduring vitality of Chinese classical dance comes from profound Chinese
civilization and Chinese people. Our pursuit of harmony, the love for nature and life
never ends.