A Beijing resident, unable to secure a ticket for the Poetic Dance, decided to experience the performance on her phone.

　　"We Chinese people," she said, "come from landscapes like these."

　　The comment points to a broader shift in the way younger Chinese are engaging with tradition, said Li Mingchong, a research fellow at the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences.

　　Raised during a period of growing prosperity and global influence, many of them are comfortable looking outward, while also returning to cultural forms that have shaped the country's collective memory, he said.

　　According to the China Association of Performing Arts, livestreams featuring multiple performers generated more than 15 billion yuan (about 2.1 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue in 2025.

　　By June, 57 professional performing arts troupes had launched regular livestreaming programs on Douyin, China's version of TikTok, staging more than 16,000 broadcasts that attracted roughly 320 million views.

Chinese dancers perform The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting, a poetic dance drama, at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Jan. 10, 2025. (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua)

　　THE STAGE IN THE PALM

　　"The dancing seems professional, but I don't get it."

　　The comment lingered with Huang Xiaoyu, who operates livestreaming programs at Shaanxi Song and Dance Theater in Xi'an, a city in northwest China known for the rich legacies of the Tang Dynasty (618-907).