Four centuries ago, Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) playwright Tang Xianzu wrote these lines into his classic play The Peony Pavilion, giving Chinese literature one of its most feverish declarations of emotion — a love so intense it overturns life and death.

On a winter night in Beijing, that love story returned. Inside the theater, the stage did something unexpected: it stretched forward, a mirrored platform cutting through the darkness and extending straight into the audience, as if the pavilion itself had stepped off the page and come looking for an audience.

This is the set of Dream in Peony Pavilion, the latest dance drama co-directed and choreographed by Li Xing and Huang Jiayuan.

After finishing his acclaimed dance drama A Dream of Red Mansions, adapted from the novel of the same title by Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) novelist Cao Xueqin, which premiered in 2021, he told himself he needed distance.

"I actually thought, 'don't do another classical adaptation so fast.'" he says.

He deliberately immersed himself in contemporary writing and realist subjects, searching for something grounded in the present.