The Beijing Dance Academy has now been strutting its stuff for 50 years, and a series of conferences and performances have been planned to celebrate the anniversary later this month.

Students from each department will put on 40 shows from 11 productions.

Excerpts from Broadway favorites West Side Story, Les Miserables and Miss Saigon will be put together by the Music Department, to go on stage at the Tianqiao Theater three times between September 16 and 18.

The Theater of the Central Academy of Drama will host the Choreography Department's version of The Prairie on the same days.

The Prairie is based on the play of the same name by Cao Yu (1910-96), one of the best-known playwrights in modern China.

Set in Northeast China in the 1910s, the story is about peasant Qiu Hu, who on his return home after escaping from prison, hears that the landlord who sent him to prison and killed his father and sister, is dead. But in the meantime his former fiancee has married the landlord's son and is bullied by her mother-in-law. The story is about the hate between Qiu and the landlady.

The Choreography Department is also putting on the modern dance The Thunderstorm at Haidian Theater on September 25 to 27.

And the showcase does not stop there. The middle school attached to the academy will stage three shows of classic ballet at the Cultural Palace of Nationalities on September 19 to 21, and another three shows of Chinese classical and folk dance on September 23 to 26.

From September 24 to 28, the Ballet Department will share tutus with the National Ballet of China to perform Sleeping Beauty at Tianqiao Theater. Ballet diva Zhu Yan and dancer Zhang Yao of the company will join the cast.

The Chinese Classical Dance Department will put on two productions. One is the dance poem How Wonderful, to go on show at the Lantian Theater on September 24 to 26. How Wonderful was inspired by 14 Chinese poems from Wei Dynasty (AD 220-265).

The Chinese Folk Dance Department will stage Dance of the Earth at China Theater on September 27 to 29. The show is a collection of many trademark folk and ethnic dance numbers.

To dress it all, the Art Design Department will put on three exhibitions of ancient costumes designed by the students on September 28 to 30.

To coincide with the celebratory activities, the 2004 Meeting of China Secondary School Arts Education will be hosted by the Beijing Dance Academy. An international Seminar of Education on Dance will be held during the annual meeting.

(China Daily September 16, 2004)