Dazzling dance performances ignite public passion for art in Chongqing

A wealth of dazzling dance performances are energizing southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, following the launch of the final round last Sunday for the 20th Qunxing Award -- one of China's national awards for performing arts.

At the Chongqing Public Cultural Art Center, 26 outstanding dance pieces performed by teams from across China amazed the audience.

The Beijing piece "Thermos Cup" portrayed a heartwarming story of neighbors helping each other. Shanghai's "Fun by the Old Well" drew inspiration from local intangible cultural heritage -- Xijiao peasant painting, featuring highly vivid and humorous choreography.

The group dance "Bride on the Carpet" from northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region immersed the audience in a Uygur wedding scene with its joyful dance moves.

"The performers delivered an excellent and very precise stage performance, with a high level of technical execution, earning them warm applause," said Aisajan Sawut, deputy director of the Xinjiang Cultural Center.

The Qunxing Award is a national arts award established in 1991 for the general public and cultural workers, and is held every three years. The award covers six major categories of music, dances, plays, traditional Chinese operas, choir singing and public-square dancing.

For the current edition, 174 works have advanced to the final round, and the winners will be announced at the award ceremony on November 4.

The presentation of the 20th Qunxing Award is part of the 14th China Art Festival, which has kicked off on Oct 23 in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Established in 1987, the China Art Festival is one of the largest national comprehensive arts events, held every three years in the country. This year's festival is co-hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Sichuan Provincial Government, and the Chongqing Municipal Government.

Dazzling dance performances ignite public passion for art in Chongqing

China's Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest on Sunday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).

The crew members consist of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, who is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In another notable first, one of the crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.

China launches Shenzhou-23 manned spaceship