China International Ballet Season

The Third China International Ballet season has just dropped its curtain in Beijing. The two-month event saw over 31 shows from several world-famous ballet companies both from home and abroad.

The National Ballet of China closed the season with an aptly-named performance titled The Spring Festival at Tianqiao Theater.

With the Chinese New Year just around the corner, the ballet started off with a scene of temple fair during the holiday.

The show has been dubbed the Chinese version of The Nutcracker. It tells a similar story where the nutcracker comes to life, with plenty of Chinese characteristics added.

[Photo/tianqiaojuyuan.com]

"There are many Chinese elements in the show. At the end of the ballet season, we choose a nationalized ballet for the audience. It symbolizes our expectations for China ballet's future," said Liu Jingwei, General Manager of Tianqiao Theater.

The Third China International Ballet season began last November, with 31 shows of 14 plays. Among them, 26 shows turned out as full house.

In total, some 60,000 people attended the shows.

[Photo/tianqiaojuyuan.com]

Several world-famous ballet companies at the festival covered a wide range of styles - classical ballet, such as Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet; and also more contemporary presentations like Infants of Paradise and The Brothers Karamazov.

This ballet season also aimed to showcase the works rooted in Chinese traditional culture to audiences home and abroad.

China's top 10 ballet troupes also joined hands for a first time to present a fantastic show.

"Developing ballet with Chinese characteristics is our goal. We convened China's top 10 ballet troupes and let them perform their original plays. It is important in promoting Chinese original ballets," said Wang Quanxing, deputy director of National Ballet of China.

The first ballet company directors' forum was also held, with troupe leaders discussing how to develop art with Chinese characteristics and how to better promote Chinese plays.

[Photo/tianqiaojuyuan.com]

Apart from dance performances, the festival also featured other activities to help people gain an understanding of ballet.

Among them is one where ballet stars introduce the origins of the dance and share more about this art form.

Another workshop featured the effort behind the scenes - people could go backstage to take a look at how the elaborate costumes and shoes are made.

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. flu season appears to be over. It was long, but it wasn't unusually severe.

Last week, for the third straight week, medical visits for flu-like illnesses dipped below the threshold for what's counted as an active flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

Other indicators, like hospitalizations and patient testing, also show low and declining activity. No state is reporting a high amount of flu activity. Only New England is seeing the kind of patient traffic associated with an active flu season right now, but even there flu impact is considered modest.

Since the beginning of October, there have been at least 34 million illnesses, 380,000 hospitalizations and 24,000 deaths from flu, according to CDC estimates. The agency said 148 children have died of flu.

CDC officials called that a "moderate" flu season, an assessment shared by other doctors.

Even at the peak, “we felt strained but never over-capacitated” said Dr. Jay Varkey, infectious disease physician at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital.

“It felt more like a traditional respiratory virus season than when we had massive upswings of COVID confounding it,” he added.

For much of the season, most illnesses were attributed to a milder flu strain, and one that officials say was well matched to the seasonal flu vaccines. Preliminary data presented in February suggested the vaccines were around 40% effective in preventing adults from getting sick enough from the flu that they had to go to a doctor’s office, clinic or hospital.

COVID-19 illnesses seem to have peaked at around he same time as flu. So too did illnesses caused by another respiratory virus, RSV.

CDC data indicates coronavirus-caused hospitalizations haven’t hit the same levels they did at the same point during the last three winters. Earlier this year, COVID-19 was putting more people in the hospital than flu. But right now the hospitalization rates are about the same, CDC data shows.

Although the season wasn't particularly bad, it was long — and springtime upticks in flu are always possible.

COVID-19 scrambled the ways health officials track respiratory viruses.

The agency used to count the number of weeks of elevated visits to doctor's office for flu-like symptoms, but COVID-19's flu-like symptoms muddied that up. Now, the agency focuses on the number of weeks that a high percentage of specimens tested positive for flu.

Under the new measure, the 2023-24 flu season was 21 weeks long. Under the previous measure, flu seasons before the COVID-19 pandemic tended to run between 11 and 21 weeks.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - A sign for flu vaccination is displayed outside of a grocery store in Glenview, Ill., Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. On Friday, April 26, 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week, for the third straight week, medical visits for flu-like illnesses dipped below the threshold for what's counted as an active flu season. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)