An immortal spectacle

At the Niya ruins site in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, an antique brocade armband, with embroidered characters roughly translating to "five stars rise in the east and benefit China", left many with room for imagination.

For the crew of dance drama Eastern Immortal Prophecy, the artifact from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) contains an epic about the empire, a northern nomadic tribe and the kingdom of Jingjue, which is what Niya used to be. The story tells of a border-defending commander who captures a tribal chief's son, yet the two get lost in the desert and end up in Jingjue, where the pair, and the princess of the kingdom, develop a friendship.

At the recent 13th China Art Festival, the dance drama was given the Wenhua Grand Prize, a top accolade for the performing arts in the country.