“The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting” is a poetic dance drama divided into seven chapters, including “Unfolding the Scroll”, “Tracing the Seal”, “Reeling the Silk”, “Pursuing the Stone”, “Making the Brush”, “Grinding the Ink” and “Into the Painting”. The audiences follow a research fellow of the Palace Museum to unfold a scroll only to stroll in the legendary wonderland of traditional Chinese art.

The poetic dance drama “The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting” employs a narrative structure of multiple time-spaces intertwining with one another. The story begins simultaneously at two distinctive moments in history: the time when the young Ximeng is finishing his painting, and when “A Panorama of Mountains and Rivers” is about to be exhibited in our time. As the scroll keeper studies the painting diligently, he leads the audiences into the mind of Ximeng, accompanying the latter through the entire process of making of this legendary artwork, resonating in spirit with this “prodigy” whose life is only briefly recorded. Together, they explore the entangled contingency and necessity of the painting’s unique place in history and recognise the emotional ties between ancient artefacts and our contemporary conditions.

On stage a multi-layered scene will be presented like a painting. Under the bright moon that has shone for thousands of years, as the scroll keeper and Ximeng meet their eyes, together with the diligent researchers at the Palace Museum and the indefatigable craftsmen of ancient times, they blend in a humanistic spectacle.