The Liaoning Ballet performs La Sylphide. Photo: Courtesy of BMW China

The curtain rose over a silent stage with the spotlight illuminating a slim, dainty ballerina who captivated the theater's audience. 

Such was the scene at the premiere of La Sylphide performed by the Liaoning Ballet last night at Beijing's Tianqiao Theater for this year's BMW Culture Night, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary. La Sylphide is one of the world's oldest surviving romantic ballets and the biggest project since the Liaoning Ballet and Culture Night announced their collaboration last year.

La Sylphide is set in a small Scottish village, where a young farmer named James becomes attracted to a sylph, or forest fairy, who visits him on the eve of his wedding. James accepts a magic scarf from a wizard, who tells the farmer it will help bind the sylph to him and prevent her flying away. However tragedy strikes when the beautiful fairy's wings fall off and she dies. The heartbroken farmer is dealt another blow when his bride-to-be, Effie, elopes with another young man.

As one of the top five ballet troupes in China, the Liaoning Ballet was formed with the Russian School of Ballet and is renowned for its dancers' bold, graceful choreography. La Sylphide places a high emphasis on exquisite, rich dance movements. "Learning La Sylphide, we encountered many difficulties," said lead ballerina, Xing Dongting. "The most difficult aspect was keeping up with the rhythm."

Liaoning Ballet's vice director, Qu Zijiao, stressed that a successful performance is not only judged by its degree of difficulty in dancing, but rather the charm of its storyline.

"The plot of La Sylphide is classic. Any troupe that has not performed the ballet cannot be regarded as a top troupe," she said.

"We are also preparing many of our own original performances including The Last Emperor, Moon and The Fairy of Peony."

Qu hopes the Liaoning Ballet will be given more chances to perform in international cities, like Beijing.

"Only through performing can we improve, but these opportunities predominantly lie in large cities. In the past five years, we have achieved more than we imagined and hope to get more opportunities in the future," she added.