"Bird's Nest" stages Chinese drama version of Avatar

A Chinese fantasy music drama debuts in the Beijing National Stadium, "Bird's Nest", on Friday night.

Aiming to create the Chinese version of Avatar, the Attraction is a romantic time-travel love story with high-tech sound, lighting and three-dimantional effects, said Lu Chuan, renowned Chinese director.

The 'Bird's Nest' has become a holy place for the Chinese ever since the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, said Lu.

Tailored to the "Bird's Nest", the fantasy music drama breaks from traditional form by integrating music, dance, magic and acrobatics in the arena.

"We hope to make the arena a new cultural landmark in the Chinese capital, with this fantasy music drama," Lu added.

Lu firstly gained his reputation for his movie "Kekexili: Mountain Patrol," which depicts the struggle between vigilante rangers and poachers in a remote Tibetan region.

Lu and his production team made the "Bird's Nest" into a huge box with around 7,000 seats.

The audience will be able to enjoy an audio-visual feast, said Guillaume Duflot, the drama's chief opearating officer and technical director from French entertainment group ECA2.

The drama gathered top production and performing teams with renowned Japanese costume designer Emi Wada as the chief stylist, and ECA2 as the choreography design-in-Chief.

Known as Japanese costume queen, Emi Wada has created outfits for Akira Kurosawa's film Ran, which earned her an Academy Award for costume design.

"It is such a challenging but attractive task for such a grand show in the 'Bird's Nest'. All of the manuscripts for each piece of the over 1,000 costumes were hand painted," said Emi Wada.

After the first round of 16 performances this season, the production and performing team will make modifications to the drama in accordance with public responses, said Lu.

"To ensure the vigor and vitality of the Attraction, we will continuously improve it and introduce various versions," Lu said. In the coming spring in 2013, the drama will be a standard performance.

The music drama is planned to be staged more than 200 times in the "Bird's Nest" in the coming three years.

It is the largest event in the arena since the Olympic Games in 2008.

As of July 2012, the "Bird's Nest" has received around 20 million people with the gross revenue of 820 million yuan (about 130 million U.S. dollars).