Dance drama "Goddess And The Dreamer"staged in Henan Photo taken on Sep. 25, 2011 shows the director and choreographer Tong Ruir...

Dance drama "Goddess And The Dreamer"staged in Henan

Photo taken on Sep. 25, 2011 shows the director and choreographer Tong Ruirui (front) during the rehearsal of the dance drama Goddess And The Dreamer in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province.

Director and choreographer Tong Ruirui (C) instructs performers during the rehearsal of the dance drama Goddess And The Dreamer in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, March 22, 2012. (Xinhua/Zhao Peng)

Director and choreographer Tong Ruirui (C) instructs performers during the rehearsal of the dance drama Goddess And The Dreamer in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, March 22, 2012. (Xinhua/Zhao Peng)

Director and choreographer Tong Ruirui (1st R) instructs performers during the rehearsal of the dance drama Goddess And The Dreamer in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, March 22, 2012. (Xinhua/Zhao Peng)

Dancers perform the dance drama Goddess And The Dreamer in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, March 23, 2012.

Director and choreographer Tong Ruirui (front) instructs performers during the rehearsal of the dance drama Goddess And The Dreamer in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, March 22, 2012. (Xinhua/Zhao Peng)

"The outcast prince Cao Zhi comes to Luo River and walks slowly to his lover Goddess of Luo River. Finally, they fly into sky in fantasy." When the dance drama Goddess And The Dreamer ended, thunderous applause broke out from the audience who could hardly hear the unfinished music.

This is what happened at the end of the premiere of the dance drama in National Center for the Performing Art in December 2010 as well as their each performance ever after.

"I wish that 95 percent of the audience could understand this Chinese classical dance drama," said director and choreographer of the dance drama Tong Ruirui.

Tong Ruirui, in her early 30s, is a national first-class choreographer. She has won many national awards with many excellent works such as "Fan and Painting", "Nanjing 1937", "The Earth".

Her creation Goddess and The Dreamer won the gold award of the 8th China Lotus Award which is the highest honor of dance in China. The young choreographer learns from Chinese culture to find inspiration. Goddess And The Dreamer is an example.

The grand dance drama derives its inspiration from Ode To The Goddess of Luo River, a masterpiece rhyme-prose composed about 2000 years ago by Cao Zhi, a renowned poet and younger prince during the period of Three Kingdoms. The drama re-explores the poem and uncovers wherein the doomed fates of Cao Zhi, Cao Pi the elder prince-brother, heir apparent and the emperor later, and Zhen Fu the princess.

The drama in its theatrical form also tries to present the extreme classical beauty by harmonizing into one body various traditional artistic elements such as poem, calligraphy, ritual, music and dance.

"We should create works on the basis of our Chinese culture. By doing this, Chinese people are more and more confident in our nationality and our culture can rise on the international stage," said Tong.