A dragon child travels beyond language

SYDNEY — No spoken dialogue. No translation. Just puppetry, music and movement. A drama inspired by the Chinese zodiac drew more than 2,000 people to two performances in Sydney on Sept 26, bringing a story conceived through Chinese-Australian collaboration to audiences of all ages.

"It was a cute show. I like the characters, and the costumes were amazing. I thought it would be a bit tricky to understand, but it was quite clear with the different characters and what they were about," audience member Tony Rudolph said after the performance.

Children in the crowd sat transfixed as the zodiac animals moved across the stage.

The Dragon Child and the Twelve Animals of the Zodiac, a Sino-Australian collaboration, was directed by Australian director, producer and puppeteer Peter Wilson, who also directed segments of the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2006 Asian Games in Doha.

Performed by the China National Theatre for Children, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year, the production premiered in Beijing on Chinese New Year's Day in 2008, the beginning of the Year of the Rat. Since then, it has toured widely, including stops in Vietnam, Australia, Mexico, the United States and Japan, winning audiences in countries far beyond its place of origin.

Recalling the production's beginnings nearly two decades ago, Wilson said he would never forget the freezing winter of 2007 in Beijing — something, he joked, "Australians are not particularly famous for their ability to cope with" — but the cold did little to dampen the team's creative energy.

"We were already working across two languages. So why not find a theatrical language that could speak beyond both of them? Movement, image, puppetry, design, and music — each will help tell the story," said Wilson. "That possibility excited me enormously. If we could find it, perhaps we could create a world that didn't need translation, a story that a child in Beijing, or Sydney, or New York, or anywhere else in the world could simply enter."

The production, Wilson said, was never intended to be distinctly Australian or Chinese. "The work never set out to be an Australian show. The work never set out to be a Chinese show," he said. Instead, the Chinese zodiac provided something "deeply rooted in Chinese culture" while remaining "wonderfully accessible" through its 12 animal characters.

The story follows a child born to a dragon and raised under the care of the 12 zodiac animals. Along the way, it explores themes of growing up and protecting the natural environment.

"I have always believed there is something incredibly powerful about bringing artists from different cultures together, and simply allowing them to share — ideas, traditions, skills, stories, and different ways of seeing the world," Wilson said. "It's not to change one another, nor to decide which way is better, but to listen, to remain curious, and then to make something together that perhaps none of us could have imagined alone."

The Dragon Child, he said, became one of those rare opportunities. "Through that sharing, we created something unique, something that would eventually travel far beyond us, finding audiences across cultures, languages and generations.

"The little dragon we first imagined nearly 20 years ago in a rehearsal room in Beijing is still traveling. And somehow, wonderfully, it has found its way here."

"To see it come alive again on stage is really wonderful," said Richard Jeziorny, creative stage designer of the drama. "It's still so relevant, and an audience can still connect and relate to it. It's just very emotional."

XINHUA