East Meets West

The China National Acrobatic Troupe was founded more than 50 years ago, and its repertory includes more than 100 programs -- acrobatics, aerial acts, farce, magic and vocal imitations. The performances (free but tickets required) feature plate spinning, hoop diving, umbrella juggling and so on.

But no celebration of Chinese culture could be considered properly inaugurated, or propitious, without a display of fireworks, that beautiful and characteristically fleeting art. On Saturday night, pyrotechnic choreographer Cai Guo-Qiang will unleash a program created specifically for the Kennedy Center, an eight-minute, three-sequence suite with displays from nine barges. Called "Tornado," it will feature visions of flying fire dragons and kites, and the climactic whirlwind reaching up to the sky should be visible for quite a distance.

SHAANXI -- The terra cotta warriors really are amazing, standing eternally vigilant in their graves and staring with a peculiar despair into eternity. There are 8,000 or so figures -- archers, foot soldiers, charioteers and horses, officers, etc. -- many still in tiny pieces awaiting reconstruction. They rise in waves from the earth, some rows fully exposed, some still buried up to their knees, others fallen onto the backs of their comrades. The horses, too, some rearing, some seeming to be struggling to get their legs free of the muck. There were about four major facial molds for the heads, and they were painted to look more individualistic -- research suggests there were at least 17 colors -- but it's all faded off, and oddly it's just that blank-eyed expression that's the eeriest part. Each statue weighs between 440 and 680 pounds; the legs are solid but the bodies are hollow, which helps (or did help) keep them upright. Not only that, but according to scientists, they must have been baked at something like 800 degrees, nobody is quite sure how. They're also larger than life-size, so they would have been quite intimidating to even a spiritual opponent.

Qin Shihuang, the emperor who had them constructed, became a prince at 13 and immediately began assembling two armies, one for this world and another for the next. He succeeded in overthrowing his seven rivals and uniting the country and also ordered the construction of the Great Wall, his country's most famous landmark. But two years after Qin's death, a peasant uprising set fire to his tomb complex. It burned underground for three months, collapsing the timbers that held up the ceiling. It gradually vanished and was rediscovered only about 30 years ago by a farmer who brought up some fragments while digging a well.

Although his tomb was nearly forgotten, Qin -- pronounced "Chin" -- left another mark on history: He gave his name to the nation of China.

Three of the Qin statues, two soldiers and one of the great horses will be on display in the North Gallery throughout the festival. The impact of their discovery has been dramatic, not only in sheer archaeological and artistic terms, but as symbols of a great imperial vision of the nation from more than 20 centuries ago. They have become icons of the culture and popular subjects for theatrical works, including two rather different pieces here.

The Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble , headed by Artistic Director Doudou Huang, arguably China's most influential choreographer, will perform "Symbols of China," a four-part suite inspired by weiki (an ancient board game similar to backgammon) and martial arts as well as the terra cotta warriors. Another piece on the program, "Bronze Bell Music and Dance: Six Dance Imageries of Zhou Dynasty," is set to a score by composer Tan Dun, inspired by the ancient imperial chimes. Tan is best known here for the Oscar-winning score to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the operas "Marco Polo" and "Peony Pavilion."

The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra , making its Washington debut, will perform "Fantasia on Terra Cotta Warriors," set to a three-movement piece by Peng Xiuwen, the renowned 20th-century Chinese composer. Tan Dun's work is represented here, too, with "Fire Ritual."

In fact, Tan's music runs like a motif throughout the festival: The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra has Tan'smultimedia piece called "The Map, Concerto for Cello, Video and Orchestra" on its program, and the Ying Quartet -- siblings Janet, David, Timothy and Phillip -- will perform Tan's "Three of Eight Colors" as part of what it calls a "dim sum" tasting menu of small Chinese musical delights. A Tan composition is even on the program of the Hong Kong Festival of 250 Drums on Oct. 8.

Shaanxi province is, as the Kennedy Center's Adams points out, the cradle of puppetry. It's a personal favorite -- she has several puppets on her office wall -- and she had shadow puppetry on her short list from the beginning. However, high-level puppet companies, like the opera troupes, often perform only beloved vignettes or excerpts from famous works, snatches that might not be easily understood by American audiences. So Adams commissioned the prominent Chinese American artist Ping Chong to create a piece for the Shaanxi Folk Art Theater to premiere at the festival. "Cathay: Three Tales of China" uses traditional shadow puppetry and multimedia effects to evoke the nation at three stages: during the imperial splendor of the Tang Dynasty, in the struggle to survive during World War II and now in the midst of the country's building boom and luxury tourist development. Shaanxi Folk Art Theater will also present a more traditional short-scene program of folk tales aimed at younger audiences, such as "The Crane and the Turtle" and "The Bear and the Flowers."

The 1957 classic play by Lao She, "Teahouse" -- performed by the Beijing People's Art Theatre in its first appearance in the United States -- also employs the vignette tradition to suggest cultural changes. Set in Beijing, it chronicles the 50-year rise and decline of the institution of the teahouse -- a gathering place that might be society hall, gambling den, political hangout, formal business office and sometimes brothel all rolled into one -- in three crucial periods: the 1898 coup d'etat by the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty, which embarked on a harsh modernization policy; the 1918 chaos of the warlord regimes; and 1947, after the Japanese occupation of Beijing.

SHANGHAI -- The dancers' costumes had extraordinarily long sleeves made of chiffon that they unroll and whirl in great loops like gymnasts' ribbons (and surely were the source of those routines) before recovering them into their bodies. Actually, the sleeves don't "unroll" so much as they seem to launch themselves from the dancers' wrists, becoming banners, tidal waves, clouds, even weapons.