A celebratory evening of village culture in Chongqing

At a recent grand Spring Festival village evening gala in Chongqing's Yongchuan district on Jan 16, the audience was captivated by the Anren Bench Dragon Dance, a form of national intangible cultural heritage from Dazhou, Sichuan province.

Nine performers each carry a 4-kilogram bench to which a dragon made from straw has been attached and as a 10th performer holds a red "pearl" on the end of a long stick, they give chase, mimicking the impression of dragons splashing through water, in playful pursuit of the pearl.

Co-hosted by Sichuan province and Chongqing municipality, the evening included 13 performances, from singing, dancing and Sichuan Opera, to displays of cultural heritage.

There were illustrations of happy scenes of farming, countryside festivities, rural development and community interaction in the villages.

The agile classical dance movements of Spring in the Pear Garden, told the story of pears blossoming in Shengdeng township in Neijiang city. Ode to a Lemon is a Sichuan Panzi performance (storytelling to the rhythm of chopsticks drumming on a saucer) about production of the fruit in Anyue county in Ziyang city. And a wedding ceremony in the eastern Sichuan village style was represented in the folk song and performance of Singing at a Wedding at the Foot of Huaying Mountain.

The gala not only celebrated the regions' intertwined cultural roots, but was also designed to inform and entertain, according to authorities in Yongchuan.

Sichuan and Chongqing share a common cultural heritage. Formerly a part of Sichuan, Chongqing became China's fourth municipality directly under the central government in 1997 after Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin.

In 2021, a master plan was issued to turn the Chengdu-Chongqing region into an economic center with national impact, a key hub for scientific and technological innovation, a new area for reform and opening-up, and a place with high living standards.

The plan was designed to make national growth more balanced, and to help the southwestern region tap into talent, improve its business environment, and develop new business models.

Feng Yefei, a volunteer from Chongqing's Dazu district, speaks about cooperation between the two regions.

She says that Dazu and Ziyang city in Sichuan are renowned for their stone carvings — some 150,000 in all. Dazu Rock Carvings is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Anyue Grottoes in Ziyang's Anyue county have been included on the provisional list of World Cultural Heritage sites.

"Both places are working to establish a demonstration area for the integrated development of cultural tourism to enhance the preservation of stone carving," she says.

Eleven documentaries and short videos on stone carving have been produced, in addition to a dance drama. Just over 1,000 guardians dedicated to protecting the carvings at Dazu have been recruited, and 100 local community cultural events have been held.

The Sichuan-Chongqing Grotto Protection and Research Center has been established and organized 20 international forums and academic exchange studies in Dazu. It is also responsible for publishing the academic journal, Cave Temple Research and Conservation.

In 2023, the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle produced 8.19 trillion yuan ($1.13 trillion) in revenues, contributing 6.5 percent to the national economy with only 2 percent of the country's land area. The circle has established three advanced national manufacturing clusters and four strategic national emerging industry clusters.