From April 29th to May 5th, these creative scenes, such as the rhythmic dialogue between the pear orchard marching program and fashionable street dance, the dance of robotic dogs and puppetry skills, and the joint performance of opera masters, small inheritors, and small drummers, will be showcased at the 2025 National Southern Opera Exhibition and the 3rd Maritime Silk Road Quanzhou Drama Week. On the basis of collecting local operas from Quanzhou, Fujian, the event links rare opera genres from 6 provinces and cities across the country, gathers 13 winners of the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award and more than 50 scholars from home and abroad, and launches 42 classic plays. Through academic exchanges, cultural tourism integration, creative markets and other characteristic forms, traditional opera is introduced into people's lives. It is not only an exhibition of traditional Chinese opera culture, but also a practical experience on how to make millennium old opera live in the present. This event is funded by the National Arts Foundation's 2025 Communication, Exchange, and Promotion Program, and is jointly organized by the China Academy of Arts, the China Dramatists Association, the Fujian Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, the Fujian Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and the Quanzhou Municipal People's Government. On the evening of April 30th, on the square in front of the Confucian Temple in Quanzhou Prefecture, the sound of the Wu opera "Lianlian Ji" was thunderous. Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award winner Lou Sheng and young inheritor Hong Yuchen appeared on stage to the beat of drums, moving around and showcasing their heroic spirit. Subsequently, the drum beats of the Puxian opera "Top Scholar and Beggar: Confucius' Poetry" were played in succession. Four year old child Cai Yucheng skillfully plays drums and music, while Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award winner Huang Yanyan turns around to the rhythm, causing the audience to hold their breath and concentrate. The lingering charm lingers as the Cantonese opera "Empress Flower · Fragrant Sky" draws to a close. Chinese drama plum blossom award winner Zeng Xiaomin and inheritor of humanistic Ruqing slowly leave the stage, holding the young actors. The golden threads of the costumes shimmer, as if telling the meaning of "the continuous flow of the drama"... "Big hands and small hands holding hands" usually symbolizes mutual care between generations. At the event launch ceremony, this creative performance segment was created with this theme, depicting a vivid picture of intergenerational inheritance of traditional art. It is reported that since the exhibition and performance activities were held for three sessions, the concept of "inheriting ancient opera and holding hands" has been consistent. The first edition was' big hands holding small hands', symbolizing the continuous inheritance of ancient opera; the second edition was changed to 'small hands holding big hands', symbolizing the inheritance of ancient opera by the younger generation. This edition combines' small hands and big hands' to showcase the inheritance achievements of the three-year exhibition activity. When it comes to the original intention of holding the exhibition activity, Zeng Jingping, winner of the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award, representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage project Pear Garden Opera, and former head of the Fujian Pear Garden Opera Inheritance Center, said:' These cultural arts that have been inherited for a hundred or even a thousand years are the continuous accumulation of artists throughout history. We benefit from the accumulation of predecessors, but we should also add bricks and tiles to make them more perfect and leave them to the next generation. 'Integrating and breaking through barriers to activate urban vitality, promoting a virtuous cycle and continuous inheritance The exhibition not only conveys the profound meaning of "big hands holding hands", but also showcases innovative performances of "blending tradition and modernity" and "dialogue between classical and fashion", exploring and expanding the infinite possibilities of intangible cultural heritage inheritance and development. In the performance of the puppet show "Taming the Monkey", the subtle tremors of the inheritor's fingertips become acting eyes, and the robotic dog follows the monkey's special effects such as playing guitar and dancing disco. A cross temporal interaction between the puppet and AI unfolds; The young dancers of Peking University Fenglei Street Dance Society incorporated the "Eighteen Step Mother" hand gesture from the Pear Garden Opera into street dance, incorporating trendy body language into traditional opera styles, and building an innovative ecosystem of "breaking boundaries" and "coexistence". In addition, the exhibition activities also highlight the characteristics of promoting consumption through cultural tourism and creativity. For example, by rotating performances of plays and using online traffic and offline ticket sales, we can stimulate the vitality of cultural and tourism consumption; Combining with the "Quanzhou Opera · Southern Opera Twelve Hours" park tour, a series of cultural and creative, handicraft market activities will be carried out to explore the cultural and tourism consumption market through "opera+" and "cultural and creative+"; Through short video creation activities such as "Nanxi Sanxing Poetry", attract citizens and tourists to participate and experience, and turn traffic into "retention". In recent years, Quanzhou has taken the integration of culture and tourism as a lever to transform traditional Chinese opera from a "theatrical art" to a tangible urban gene. The organic integration of traditional and modern cultural ecology has effectively strengthened the audience of drama, and also constructed a new pattern of integrated development of culture and tourism by practicing the concept of 'shaping tourism with culture and highlighting culture with tourism'. Lv Xiujia, Director of Quanzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, said that these innovative models have effectively promoted the scale of cultural and tourism consumption and the growth of tourist reception, achieving a virtuous mutual promotion between the inheritance and protection of traditional culture and the prosperity and development of culture and tourism. Taking Gaojia Opera as an example, as an important carrier of Minnan culture, it is closely linked to the development of Quanzhou city. In recent times, with the help of immersive interpretation, cultural and creative development and other measures, Quanzhou has not only created a groundbreaking urban cultural IP, but also achieved the coexistence and prosperity of culture and industry. ”Zhou Jiejun, director of Quanzhou Gaojia Opera Inheritance Center, said. The development path of academic dialogue decoding is based on fascinating theatrical performances, where academia and art are deeply interconnected. A series of art salons and academic exchange meetings on "Discussions in the Theater" and "Dialogue in the Theater" were held simultaneously, with opera masters, Chinese and foreign scholars, and theater troupe managers discussing the development of ancient opera genres in current times around themes such as opera directing, talent cultivation, and theater troupe management. The number of plays that can be welcomed by the general public is not enough, and there are even fewer 'peak' plays, which will affect the audience, especially young people, to approach opera. ”Professor Zhu Hengfu from Shanghai Normal University admitted frankly. What should I do? Keep the 'original' and pursue the 'new'! Song Guanlin, former president of the National Peking Opera Theater and vice chairman of the Chinese Cultural Management Association, believes that two relationships need to be handled well: one is the relationship between inheritance and innovation, which requires being good at inheritance, proficient in learning from others, and surpassing innovation; The second is the relationship between "internet celebrity check-in shops" and "century old shops". We cannot have "century old shops" just for the sake of "internet celebrity check-in shops". In recent years, we have promoted the 'Contemporary Artist Creation Experience Series', recording these arts is to preserve a code of civilization, "said Wang Kui, director of the Chinese Academy of Art's Opera Research Institute. Zhou Qi, the president of Gansu Academy of Arts, believes that the development of traditional Chinese opera reflects diversity, with both modern urban opera and more traditional opera based on basic inheritance. This leads to different forms of artistic creation, and even subtle differences in the ways and methods used to excavate and organize traditional plays. Regarding the issue of talent in the industry, Li Zhengcheng, the president of Yangzhou Yangju Art Research Institute in Jiangsu Province and winner of the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award, believes that whether opera performers can become useful talents depends on whether they are properly trained after joining. In response to this, we adopt the method of "using drama to guide work and exams to promote practice", continuously creating a platform for artistic practice, and tailoring plays for young actors based on their own conditions. The millennium opera charm inherits not only skills, but also cultural confidence for the future and the world. (New Society)