Turning legend into a reality

Students of a leading performing arts university get inspiration from both myth and technology, Cheng Yuezhu reports.

Young people can popularize traditional culture among their peers by making it both fun and educational. Students of new media art at the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts showcased their works that use art and technology to promote traditional culture at an exhibition at Enjoy Art Museum in Beijing from May 26 to 30.

The title of the exhibition, Zuochang, is a term to describe traditional performing arts. It indicates going onstage to perform. This was apt for the occasion as the students were about to graduate and it recognized their achievement in bridging the traditional and the modern.

Of Chinese folk tales, the story of Chang'e, the moon deity, is one of the least obscure. According to one version of mythology, she, then-mortal, took her husband's elixir to prevent a villain from stealing it. She then flew to the moon and has been living there with a rabbit for company.