Changes in literature and art in the last five years

"One of the biggest innovations is the element of national treasures and guofeng, or the Chinese traditional style," said Chen Lei, the director of the gala, in an earlier interview with Henan Business Daily.

"At the end of the show, the splendid Tang palace produced by animation technology is more like a two-dimensional world from online games," he says.

On the online video platform Bilibili, it has been viewed nearly 7.5 million times. Among the more than 18,000 comments, a user named Yueliulinshuang says: "Actually, I'm not that interested in dance, but this program has presented the charmingly naive court ladies in the Tang Dynasty so incisively and vividly. Take a closer look at their playful faces, it's hard not to like them.

"The integrated combination of Tang style and classical music, the structure of the dance and the visual effects onstage, are all refreshing. The light of an artistic work that really meets the demand of the people will never be dimmed."

The show's success echoes the four expectations that President Xi Jinping raised when addressing the 10th national congress of the Association of Literature and Art and the 9th national congress of the Chinese Writers Association on Nov 30, 2016.

He called for artists and writers "to consolidate the confidence in Chinese culture and use art to inspire people", "to serve and praise the people with positive works", "to be more innovative" and "to hold to artistic ideals and inspire society with high culture".

Held every five years, a new round of the two associations' national congresses, due Tuesday, will bring the country's influential artistic elites together once more.