Xia Yuanjie

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TO pay tribute to the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, a new underwater dance named after the Taoist “Kun” myth was well received among audiences after being aired last Thursday night on Jiangsu Satellite TV.

The inspiration of the performance originates from a story written more than 2,000 years ago by China’s ancient Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi, depicting the giant fish Kun in Chinese mythology.

Directed by Guo Jiyong, who produced a series of hit underwater dances, “Kun” features a female dancer playing with Kun in a tulou, which is a traditional and representative dwelling of China’s southeastern Fujian Province. The work presents not only feminine beauty but also a theme of ocean culture.

As Fujian is the starting point of the ancient Maritime Silk Road, the choice of tulou architecture as the stage design aims to dazzle audiences with the scenery’s history and culture, and the traditional buildings’ cultural charms.

“It is an extremely difficult challenge that we set up an underwater tulou stage, which is the same as a real tulou in size. The stage is eight tons in weight, 10 meters in diameter, and five and a half meters in height. A total of 16 staffers on the land and eight scuba-divers worked together to complete building the stage,” said Guo.

The work is composed of a solo dance of the human performer, Zhang Yashu, and a group dance of her with a virtual Kun. Zhang accomplished the group dance part by imagining that she was swimming with Kun, which demanded precise expressions and moves.

Another scene where Zhang jumps and spins among falling petals is impressive to audiences but challenging to the behind-the-scenes crew. To create a zero-G effect, each petal was threaded with silk wires to prevent it from surfacing, and four underwater assistants scattered petals during the performance.

Another challenge the film crew faced is the semi-closed underwater filming environment. They had to shoot within the limited space of the tulou stage, which made greater requirements for the whole crew’s oxygen consumption and time control under the water.

The film is now available online and last Friday topped a Douyin hotlist with 9.75 million views.

Guo established a name for himself after his underwater dance “Rhapsody on the Luo River,” an art interpretation of famous ancient Chinese painting and poem named “Ode to Goddess of the Luo River,” was aired on Henan TV in June.