Poets of the Orchid Parvillion Series

Imagine Shen Yun dancers performing onstage while one of China's most beloved works of calligraphy appears stroke by stroke. Animated on the  backdrop behind the dancers, it's as if an unseen hand is writing it in real time. 

That's the experience audiences had in the Shen Yun dance piece Poets of the Orchid Pavilion from the 2016 season. The performance was more than 1,600 years in the making, beginning with an ancient work of calligraphy known as the Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion.

How was it produced? A group of scholars gathered at the Orchid Pavilion on Mt. Kuaiji for a poetry contest over drinks. Many of the poems composed, inspired by the stunning landscape, became famous in their own right. But, it was the preface to the poems, written by the Sage of Calligraphy, Wang Xizhi, that became most noted and has gone down in history as a masterpiece. 

Now in traditional blue and white porcelain colors, the Shen Yun Collections has recreated the poem in a series of works embellished in the classical style with mountains and streams.