Cover ‘Dream in the Peony Pavilion’ will come to Hong Kong in March 2026 (Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Arts Festival)
‘Dream in the Peony Pavilion’ will come to Hong Kong in March 2026 (Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Arts Festival)
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How a Suzhou dance group revives one of China’s most famous love stories, ‘Dream in the Peony Pavilion’, next month in Hong Kong
Recent years have seen Hong Kong staging a slew of dance drama productions inspired by Chinese legends and art: A Tapestry of a Legendary Land (2024, rerun in 2025 and 2026) by the Chinese Oriental Performing Arts Group, which captures the creative process of shanshui (landscape) painting; Dongpo: Life in Poems (2025), a contemporary dance performance based on the life of Song dynasty poet Su Shi by the same company; and A Dream of Red Mansions (2025) by Jiangsu Centre, adapted from one of the Four Great Chinese Classics, Dream of the Red Chamber.
Riding on this trend, the Hong Kong Arts Festival will bring another Chinese dance drama to the city next month: Dream in the Peony Pavilion, based on one of China’s greatest love stories, The Peony Pavilion (1598) by Ming dynasty playwright Tang Xianzu. When the curtain rises at the Grand Theatre of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre on March 27, audiences will witness not only a performance but a lyrical reawakening of one of China’s most enduring tales of love and longing.
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Above ‘Dream in the Peony Pavilion’ (Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Arts Festival)
‘Dream in the Peony Pavilion’ (Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Arts Festival)
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The dance show, which had its sold-out premiere in 2025 in Suzhou, is directed and choreographed by Li Xing, recipient of the Wenhua Award, which is the highest national accolade for professional stage arts in China, in 2019. Performed by Suzhou Song and Dance Theatre’s 30-strong ensemble, the production has since then gone on a nationwide tour to Wuxi, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chongqing. The Hong Kong production will be part of the local arts festival’s grand finale.
The Peony Pavilion traces the imaginary tale of Du Liniang, the daughter of a regional governor, who falls in love with a young scholar, Liu Mengmei, in a shared dream. In the Ming dynasty, it was customary for unmarried young women from esteemed families to remain homebound. Du, who has barely seen the world, awakens from her dream and, knowing she cannot be with the one she loves, dies of despair. Liu, risking his reputation, exhumes her grave in the hope that her spirit will return. This classical Chinese play, often interpreted as a critique of the repressive feudal ethics of its time, portrays a love so profound that it transcends even death.
Above ‘Dream in the Peony Pavilion’ (Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Arts Festival)
‘Dream in the Peony Pavilion’ (Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Arts Festival)
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Many adaptations have leaned into its vast cast, elaborate poetry and social allegory, but Li’s version distils the epic into an intimate dreamscape. His Dream in the Peony Pavilion strips away subplots and political context to illuminate the personal—love, desire and the awakening of self. The result is a piece that glows with sensual movement and lyrical abstraction, replacing layers of courtly intrigue with passages of pure dance that conjure both longing and liberation.
The choreography is modern in its theatricality yet rooted in Chinese classical form. Li draws fluidly from Kunqu opera, the traditional artform that originated in Suzhou more than four centuries ago and which inspired Tang’s original script. Fragments of Kun opera music—its delicate tonal patterns and refined vocal ornamentations—weave through the contemporary score, grounding the work in its cultural birthplace while transforming it into something wholly new. That interplay between tradition and reinvention gives the piece its haunting resonance.
The visual language of the production deepens this connection. The domestic setup of the bedroom and courtyard switches to an abstract, minimalistic space that features smoke and an ink art-inspired backdrop, creating a dreamlike landscape that is part reality, part memory. Mist drifts across the stage as dancers glide amid floating silks and translucent screens. The set is not merely a backdrop but a canvas on which the soul of the story is painted—a place where time seems suspended and reality porous.
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Above ‘Dream in the Peony Pavilion’ (Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Arts Festival)
‘Dream in the Peony Pavilion’ (Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Arts Festival)
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Adding to the atmosphere is a section of the stage, which represents the pavilion, extending into the audience and blurring the boundary between dream and reality. It is in such moments that the production achieves its emotional depth: when Du’s yearning feels almost palpable, when Liu’s search for his dream beloved becomes an act of artistic immortality.
That emotional core is brought vividly to life by the dancers. Huang Huihui, who plays Liniang, describes her role as a coming-of-age journey in an interview with Wuxi government’s media centre: “It’s not just a love story between a man and a woman—it’s about a young woman’s determination and courage to follow her heart in a time when society forbade it.” Ma Chi, portraying the maid Chunxiang, speaks of her admiration for Liniang’s spirit and their “sisterly bond”, explaining that Chunxiang’s act of leading her mistress through the garden gate symbolises “breaking through the gate of feudal etiquette”. These performances give the production both grace and gravity, rendering the supernatural tale human once more.
Ultimately, Dream in the Peony Pavilion is about the freedom of love and imagination. More than four centuries after Tang penned his masterpiece, its essence continues to captivate new generations, not for its archaic setting but for its timeless sentiment: that love, even when born in a dream, can awaken the living from spiritual sleep.
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
