As the Dragon Boat Festival arrives, traditional customs such as enjoying Zongzi (rice dumplings), dragon boat racing, and hanging mugwort at the door continue to be passed down through generations.
The Legend of the White Snake, a Chinese classic, once again enters the public eye. The unforgettable scene where Lady White turns back into a snake after mistakenly drinking realgar wine during the festival has deeply impressed audiences for centuries. This classic tale has been adapted over a thousand years, inspiring countless beloved films, dramas, and literary works. In today's context, how can new vitality be infused into this ancient legend? As the opening program of the Chinese Culture Festival 2026, Shanghai Grand Theatre presents the dance drama Lady White Snake, delivering a uniquely innovative answer.
Dual storyline reinterprets startling transformation in Dragon Boat Festival
Unlike the traditional single‑line narrative, this production adopts a dual storyline that intertwines reality and imagination, the ancient and the modern, mapping the classical legend onto contemporary urban life. The ancient figures—Bai Suzhen (Lady White), Xiao Qing (Green Snake), Xu Xian, and Fa Hai—correspond respectively to the modern wife, the wife's Id, the husband, and the psychotherapist. According to students who attended the rehearsal and the creators, the modern storyline unfolds as an inner struggle of self‑recognition: the heroine dreams of a green snake, feeling disturbed and bewildered, and thus visits a psychotherapist together with her husband. Through hypnosis, the doctor reveals that the green snake is in fact the heroine's Id, hidden deep within her soul. Xu Xian, upon witnessing his beloved's true Id, is deeply shocked. The heroine longs to be her authentic self, yet cannot fully express her feelings. Eventually, for the sake of her husband, she accidentally kills her Id. The doctor also advises the husband to sever his ties with the "Id."
Thus, the classical episode of the "realgar‑wine induced revelation" in the Dragon Boat Festival is reimagined as a journey of female self‑awareness, filled with struggle and growth.
Although the storyline of the dance drama is relatively complex, audiences from different regions can grasp its essence, and even overseas viewers have shown great appreciation," said ballet artist and artistic director of Lady White Snake, Tan Yuanyuan. She explained that the version staged in Hong Kong is the upgraded 2.0 edition, which had its world premiere abroad. From the very beginning, the creative team agreed that simply replicating the traditional White Snaketale would lack originality. They therefore made extensive adaptations, even adding a time‑travel element, hoping to use this classic theme to create a work that allows contemporary audiences to understand the inner world of women. "We've been there and done that. We have the experience. So I feel that a real and truthful story to the audience is truly worthwhile."
East‑West dance fusion and stage design reveal the inner quest
Director Zhou Ke interprets the deeper spirit of the dance drama from the perspective of East‑West aesthetic fusion. The entire production integrates Chinese classical dance and ballet, with stage language rich in subtle artistry: the collision between rounded curves and linear forms symbolizes the expressive charm of classical dance, marked by spiraling, tilting, curving, and arching, and the upright poise of ballet, characterized by turnout, stretched lines, straight alignment, and lifted posture.
The opening stage design is equally rich in symbolism: the Leifeng Pagoda, constructed from lines, is reassembled into a shopping cart, transforming the ancient tower that once suppressed the White Snake into a metaphor for the modern spiritual dilemma of being ensnared by material desire.
"In fact, the shopping cart represents a kind of material life. Spiritually, we become lost and trapped within it. This is, without doubt, another form of today's ‘Leifeng Pagoda'," explained Zhou. He emphasized that the pursuit of self is a lifelong theme for people of all ages and genders, "and I also hope that audiences can gain different kinds of experiences in the theater."
I am gratified to see different dance genres presented within a single production," said Tan. She believes that the mutual fusion and enrichment of diverse dance forms, using the physical language of movement to tell Chinese stories, enables traditional culture to step onto the international stage. "At the time of our performance in New York, we were somewhat concerned about whether foreign audiences would understand the story."
Yet the final stage presentation and audience feedback left the creators deeply moved and pleasantly surprised. It is precisely the profound heritage of Chinese culture and the innovative integration of Eastern and Western aesthetics that give this dance drama its unique stage confidence, allowing the millennia‑old story of the White Snake to shine anew during the Dragon Boat Festival of 2026.
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