Quyi week in Ningbo also features outdoor performances and markets. CHINA DAILY

Weng started learning lianhualao as a child from Hu Zhaohai, who's now a national-level inheritor of the genre.

"Over 100 years ago, lianhualao performances had no instruments at all－just one storyteller and one person with bamboo clappers. In the 1950s and '60s, the performances incorporated sihu (a four-stringed bowed instrument)," Hu says.

"After the '70s, we added more instruments and started to perform as a quartet to better entertain audiences. Generally, lianhualao has continued to reform and innovate."

Hu established the Shaoxing Folk Quyi School in 1998 and cultivated over 20 students, many of whom have become leading artists in Shaoxing and have won such national awards as the China Quyi Peony Award.

Thanks to the efforts of Weng and Hu, lianhualao today has more young students.

Weng's daughter, for example, began learning and performing it after graduating from the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music. The woman, who's in her 20s, also appeared onstage during the opening ceremony.