The 2025 Spring Festival Gala hosted and aired by the China Media Group (CMG) featured over 100 elements of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), fully showcasing a rich and enduring cultural legacy of the country.
Themed "Year of the Snake, Keep Your Spirit Awake," the hours-long television show featured a dazzling array of singing and dancing, opera, comedy sketches, martial arts and other performances, offering an audiovisual feast to viewers tuning in from around the world.
The Spring Festival Gala this year started off with elements of intangible cultural heritage. The opening performances matched Wuxing, also known as Five Elements, showcasing the ancient wisdom and profound cultural heritage of the country.
The five elements theory is widely considered as one of the most influential philosophical theories of China, which is used to describe interactions and relationships between things.
The five elements - metal, wood, water, fire and earth - are believed to be the fundamental elements of everything in the universe between which all kinds of interactions could occur.
Furthermore, the West Lake silk umbrella, as the significant props for performance used in the skit "Borrowing an Umbrella" inspired by an ancient Chinese folklore, were crafted by national-level intangible cultural heritage inheritors.
The silk umbrella, a specialty product of Hangzhou City in China, uses bamboo as the bone and silk as the surface. The umbrella is a prime example, showcasing elegance and precision.
"For example, the skit 'Borrowing an Umbrella'. The umbrella is a significant prop, and we treated it as a key exhibit of intangible cultural heritage. So, we found an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in Hangzhou City's West Lake. He specializes in making West Lake silk umbrella," said Zhou Yuchen, head of the short story team, the 2025 Spring Festival Gala.
The creative show Pillars and Beams drew inspiration from the Beijing Central Axis which has been added by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to its World Heritage List in 2024.
With stunning visual effects, the song, which was performed by Chinese pop music duo Phoenix Legend, took the audience on a journey to appreciate the enduring Chinese aesthetics of the resplendent pavilions and towers, showcasing the ingenious design and cultural depth behind Chinese ancient architecture.
In addition, the country's much celebrated intangible cultural heritage Yingge dance was performed at the gala, embodying the brave and vigorous spirit of the Chinese people.
Originating in the Chaoshan area in south China's Guangdong Province, the Yingge dance is renowned for its martial arts moves, with dramatic leaps, turns and jumps all contributing to its charm.
China takes pride in its profound cultural heritage, where calligraphy and martial arts stand as timeless symbols of its artistic and philosophical depth.
During the Spring Festival Gala, "The Pen Writes the Dragon and Snake" brings these two traditions together in a mesmerizing performance. Inspired by Li Bai's poem "A Ballad of Cursive Script," the energetic martial arts performance celebrates the fluid beauty of calligraphy, likening its strokes to the movements of a dragon and a snake. The show opened with martial artist Donnie Yen appreciating a piece of cursive script, setting the stage for a stunning fusion of martial arts and calligraphy. A rotating table transforms into an ink stone while a Taichi performer embodies the ink, their movements reflecting the grace and dynamism of cursive writing.
The gala, also known as "Chunwan" in Chinese, was first broadcast back in 1983 and is seen as a major cultural symbol for the traditional Spring Festival celebrations in China.
The Spring Festival, or the start of a Chinese New Year, fell on Wednesday this year, ushering in the Year of the Snake.
CMG Spring Festival Gala features over 100 elements of intangible cultural heritage
