Dance drama shows how 1,000 years is but a short leap

As a deep, booming drum created a slow tempo that might have been Earth's pulse over a millennium, a vivid story without words, the poetic tale of an iconic, 1,000-year-old painting unfolded onstage recently at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

No doubt many of those in attendance were watching the first live entertainment they'd witnessed in the eternity since the COVID-19 outbreak began. But time, we were to be reminded, is relative.

In a leapfrogging of the space-time continuum, the stage production The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting traced, from conception to public display, the meticulous process by which A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers, the time-honored (and only known) painting by teenage artist Wang Ximeng of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), was given to the ages.