After four months of working out the individual sections, thousands of performers are now united, putting the music and dance epic "The Renaissance Road" in its final rehearsal phase.

It is the third music and dance epic of new China, after the "East is Red" and "Song of the Chinese Revolution". The five act, two-and-a-half-hour performance depicts the exploration, struggle, and development through the past 169 years of China's history, and presents a revived chronicle of the Chinese nation on stage.

The first act, "Sacrifice", depicts the Chinese people facing aggressions in the late Qing Dynasty. The performers are asked to stand on their knees, jump up and down on the ground. The intense movement and long hours of practice hurt many actors' knees.

In this piece called "Dawn", over 600 dancers perform various moves to express the nation's struggle, fury, awakening, and breaking out. It is hard to believe that these performers are actually PLA soldiers who had never before trained as dancers.

The prestigious dance director Zhang Jigang is helming this stage epic. He has assembled the most outstanding artists to work on the crew, as well as 3200 performers. Now, the musical part is finished, the script is in the final phase, and the costume and sound construction will be ready soon.

(CCTV August 21, 2009)