A Wondrous Landscape of Qingming — Adventures on Qingming Festival 2022

The variety show, A Wondrous Landscape of Qingming — Adventures on Qingming Festival 2022, produced by HNTV, recreates the gathering of literati in the Song Dynasty. The audience are guaranteed a visual feast on the beautiful mountains and rivers in springtime, while the show gives new meaning to this festive season.

《清明客》Missing My Hometown on Qingming Festival

The song Missing My Hometown on Qingming Festival expresses the eagerness of migrants to return home, resonating with the night drinking scene of Su Shi and Mi Fu. In Missing My Hometown on Qingming Festival, a song by Li Yugang, the lyrics evoke nostalgia through the rendition of Zhuang Zhou in his work Discussion of the Equality of Things. It is combined with real-life countryside landscapes to tickle the nostalgic thought and highlight Chinese family traditions and heritage inheritance.

《陇上踏歌行》A Journey of Music

A Journey of Music illustrates the busy farming scene during the Qingming season.

《青鸟唤春》The Blue Birds Sing for Spring

With its lustrous color and lightweight form, the blue bird was an auspicious and divine creature in Chinese mythology, and was regarded by posterity as a messenger of good tidings. In his poem To the Tune of Silk-Washing Stream, Southern Tang emperor Li Jing wrote, “Blue birds bring no news from beyond the cloud; in vain the lilac blossoms knot my sorrow in the rain.” Li Shangyin, a Chinese poet and politician of the late Tang Dynasty, also versified the feathered creature, “To the three fairy hills it is not a long way. Would the blue bird oft fly to see her on their height?” Inspired by the tale of blue bird, Chinese artist Yang Wu choreographed the dance by reproducing the mystical creature taking to the sky and bringing forth a vibrant spring scene.

《梦寒食》Cold Food Festival

By capturing the quintessence of Qingming folkways, the show highlights some of the gems of Chinese food, such as qingtuan (green dumplings made of glutinous rice and Chinese mugwort or barley grass), qingmingguo (a variant of qingtuan) and sangza (deep-fried noodles in a twisted pyramid shape). The Chinese people have reposed their prayers and wishes in these delicacies and endowed them with the cultural meaning of their times. Such a strong interconnection between culture and food has been perpetuated and passed on in many ways from generation to generation.

《千里落花风》Petals Dance in the Gust

As the most valiant poet and the most poetic general of the Southern Song Dynasty, Xin Qiji put his emotions into writing and fought enemies on horseback. Known for his passionate poetry, he was dubbed “a heroic poet”. The dance pays homage to Xin Qiji’s poetry, interweaving the three stages of his life — youth, middle age and twilight years — to capture the ups and downs of his fate and his profound concern for his country and people.

《清茗酬知音》Missing My Beloved on Qingming Festival

Missing My Beloved on Qingming Festival combines elements from pingtan (Chinese folk ballad) and Kunqu Opera to recreate the farewell scene of talented scholars and beautiful lasses. In this lyrical prose, artists of pingtan, one of the intangible cultural heritages of China, intonate melancholic romances in a garden with a touch of nostalgia.