The 2025 Spring Festival Chinese Opera Gala at the ancient city of Taiyuan in north China's Shanxi Province features outdoor street performances, aiming to bring the traditional arts closer to common people.
To be aired on Jan 30, the second day of the Spring Festival, the 2025 Opera Gala innovated to bring opera performances outside studios. Backdropped by streets and structures of the ancient Taiyuan City, the 2025 Gala is to create an immersive experience for audiences.
One of the highlights is the performance of Yingge Dance, a national cultural heritage of south China, on the streets of the ancient northern city.
"The Yingge Dance which we perform is a national intangible cultural heritage, with a history of over 400 years. This is the traditional culture we inherited from our ancestors, and we younger generation must carry it forward," said Zheng Siyuan, a Yingge dance performer.
Paralleled with Yingge Dance, multiple operas and folk dramas staged on different streets are to be performed simultaneously, which poses a significant challenge to the directors.
"The connection between streets, the integration of spaces, and the seamless linking of performances pose our greatest challenges. With around 500 professional performers and background actors on-site, coordinating everything is also a significant challenge," said Hai Wei, director of street shows.
Despite the challenges, bringing the Spring Festival Opera Gala outdoors is to bring the traditional art closer to the crowds, and blend the characteristics of different neighborhoods and communities with the performances, introduced director Yu Hongya.
"In recent years, the annual opera gala has been held outdoors instead of in the studio. This time, the shows on different streets feature different styles but all embody the essence and spirit of the traditional opera," said Yu.
Another highlight of this year's gala is that, an increasing number of young performers made their TV debut, with the youngest being just 4 years old. Chinese traditional operas are gaining popularity among younger generations.
"A growing number of children and teenagers started to learn traditional operas in recent years, which offers us more choices to involve even very young kids in all kinds of opera and folk drama performances," said Yu.
Spring Festival Chinese Opera Gala brings traditional arts on street
Spring Festival Chinese Opera Gala brings traditional arts on street
A group of experts said they are expecting China's economy to post steady growth in 2026 despite an increasingly uncertain global situation that posts challenges to the country's development.
The experts made the remarks in a recent interview with China Global Television Network in south China's tech hub Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.
An official for Qianhai, a special economic zone that has become a critical growth engine for south China's Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area city cluster, said that like other major economies around the world, China is also facing increasing challenges, but he believes the country will post steady growth in 2026.
"I mean [for] other major economies right now, they [are] kind of also facing a bit of challenges. Geopolitical risks are rising. Trade war [has] not yet completely ended. But having said that, I think [for] China, there is also a domestic-oriented economy. You know that 80 percent -- more than 80 percent -- is still domestic demand. And also we start to see some kind of, particularly in the areas like the new industries, but even in some kind of the broad-based industry, we still see the manufacturing investments keep rising despite the uncertainties, despite all these various kinds of pressures. I expect China's economy still going to remain kind of a stable piece of growth. [The growth rate of] four point five to five percent, I think, is still going to be quite achievable for the next twelve months or so," said Qu Hongbin, chief economist for Qianhai authority.
Greg Smith, chairman at AustCham South China, an institute for promoting Australia-China commercial relationship, said China's resilient partnerships with other countries around the world can help the country navigate through the uncertain global landscape.
"I think that you'd be a very brave person to bet against the Chinese economy. It's been resilient over a long period and it's gone through some fairly strong headwinds and come out with still the flag waving. Taking some of the issues that you're talking about with tariffs and the geopolitics that's in place, there's resilience in the partnership [which] is what all the countries are looking for in their trades. So the stronger relationships that you have, I think that's going to really be the bedrock to making sure that we do hit the 4.5 [growth] rate. I think all the countries around the world are looking for trusted partners to be able to work and trade with," said Smith.
Sunny Tan, chairman at the Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC), said he believes the rest of the world wants to be part of China's economic growth.
"I would say that China has a very, very good number -- achievable number. And I can see the big market by itself, the resilience, and also [it] is really providing a certainty in the time of uncertainty. Our country can continue to grow as planned. At the same time we can see very good interest from around the world, who wants to be part of this growth, and be wanting [who wants this growth] to be in China," Tan said.
Qin Youming, founder and CEO of Manifold Tech, a startup based in Shenzhen, said the entrepreneurs still see opportunities in globalization and companies should be quick in adapting themselves to the changing environment to survive.
"For market wise, we still see there are opportunities in globalization even though there are a lot of geopolitical matters going on. But the uniqueness of the Greater Bay Area, I think, is still unmatched, like the talents we can find here, the craftsmanship, the well experienced engineers here, is [are] still unmatched. I think even though there's uncertainty around the world, the business has to grow globally. Anyone who can adapt [themselves to] this quickly can survive," he said.
Experts expect China's economy to continue growing amid uncertainties in global landscape
