Fifty years like a song. In the autumn of 1959 when an evening party was held beside the West Lake, Hangzhou Song and Dance Troupe—the predecessor of Hangzhou Song and Dance Theater, began its half-a-century long glorious journey, originally named Song and Dance Group, then Cultural Troupe and then Song and Dance Group again, and finally expanded and renamed Song and Dance Theater in 2007. From lodging on the third floor of Xinhua Bookstore with less than 10 employees to stationing in a brand new building of over 8,800m2, the theater has grown into an art unit with certain scale, composed of dance department, vocality department, orchestral music department, folk music department, administrative department, theater, and art company, staffed with nearly 200 employees, and miniaturizing the history of Hangzhou show business.

The autumn sweet osmanthus and lotuses of the West Lake are the life resources of creation, while waterside pavilions and galleries the natural platform. In beautiful Hangzhou, we composed and performed many excellent programs themed by West Lake over the past fifty years such as Lady White Snake and Xu Xian, Charming with Either Light or Heavy Makeup, Three Pools Mirroring the Moon, Butterfly Lovers, Broken Bridge in Misty Rain, Two Butterflies Flying, etc., which won excellent program awards issued by the Ministry of Culture, Zhejiang Province, and Hangzhou City. In the initial 30 years, we also composed and performed many large-scale operas, including A Letter from South China performed for successive 120 times in 1960s, A Person Not Allowed to Be Born in 1970s unfailingly in Zhejiang and East China, winning great praises and remarkably showing our strength in vocality and instrumental music. The orchestra music Goof News about Beijing to Border Area, Ode to Red Flag, piano concerto Yellow River, and recent Beethoven’s symphony Fate and Unfinished Symphony fully showed the maturity and development of orchestra; Hundreds Birds Worshipping the Phoenix, Zhoushan Ensemble of Gongs &Drums, Skylark, Autumn Moon over the Calm Lake, Playing on the Street, Three-six, March Reverie, and Sheshan Mountain Paint, composed and performed by fork music team won universal praise and gain great popularity among common people, till now.

For 30 years since reform and opening-up, great changes have taken place on the motherland; literature and art flowers of every kind have been in bloom; and composition and performance of the Song and Dance Theater have grown prosperous and fruitful. Our dance poetic drama Sister Drum, large-scale ballet Jade Bird, large-scale dance poetic drama Ode to Peace, song and dance special performance China Wind, dances F, Sun is Not Black, Red Lover, Auspicious Omen, and Survivor were awarded various domestic and international awards successively.

Over fifty years, Hangzhou Song and Dance Theater introduced and cultivated numerous excellent talents by strategic foresight and tolerance, and made them show extraordinary talents on art stages of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, and even China. Now, the theater owns over 40 professional senior talents and over 10 young actors winning various domestic and international artistic awards. Presently, artistic talents from Hangzhou Song and Dance Theater can be seen on the world-class artistic stages of Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and even America and France.

To strengthen international cultural communication, enhance its international influence, promote brand performances to international market, and make literature and art work for diplomacy, the theater has traveled all over the world and made great contributions to transmission and development of traditional Chinese culture. While enhancing the brand position in show business, the theater is striving to improve its popularity on world artistic stage. Since 1985 when we visited Japan for the first time, cultural communications with the country has been ongoing. Through friendly visits and communications with other countries, we constantly expanded our artistic vision, unceasingly improved our cultural exchange level, and left our sweat and footprints in America, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Thailand, North Korea, Netherlands, Guyana (France), etc. In 2007, the theater appointed by the Ministry of Culture took part in the Celebrating Performance for the “Shanghai Cooperation Organization” Summit with President Hu Jintao, and was commended and awarded by the Ministry. Cherishing the glorious sense of mission, artists of Hangzhou Song and Dance Theater always regard the national culture transmission as their own sacred mission.

After five decades of pain efforts and devotion, Hangzhou Song and Dance Theater has won universal reputation and praise, as well as numerous honors and awards from government and cultural propaganda department, for example, “Strengthen Management, Promote Composition, Enliven Song and Dance Performance” by the Ministry of Culture; “First Class Opera Troupe” by Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture for twice, “Zhejiang Provincial Advanced Group of Cultural System” and “Zhejiang Provincial Supplement Culture by Culture Advanced Group ”.

Steeped in the song and dance industry for half a century, all actors and employees of the theater has devoted their best ages to the national and people’s stage and painted the historical famous cultural city Hangzhou a thick and heavy artistic color by youth and life time, weaving brilliant scenery of song and dance for West Lake. Facing to song and dance career, to the art, and to the motherland, we never regret but still move on.