The second edition of the Luminous Festival, highlighting inclusive arts, includes The Story of Giving Birth from China. [Photo by Patrick Imbert & Li Hao/For China Daily]

The Story of Giving Birth tells of the predicament that pregnant women can face, including terminating a pregnancy, giving birth in the roughest of environments and eventually raising children－every one of these made all the harder because of an absence of paternal support.

The play is performed mainly by female migrant workers from the Mulan Community Service Center, a nonprofit social service organization that brings together women who come from all over China to work in Beijing.

The director of the play, Zhao Zhiyong, a professor at the Central Academy of Drama, calls the play a project of applied theater, which does not see drama as art to be appreciated but as a means of serving practical social goals, such as offering school students psychological counseling.

Zhao has worked with Mulan Community Service Center since 2014, teaching the migrant workers to engage in drama as a way of expressing themselves.