Picking Grapes

Introduction

Won a gold award in Vienna in 1959 and has been danced by generations of Xinjiang dancers since

Picking Grapes is a classic Uyghur dance, first performed in Beijing in 1959 with Ayitula in the lead; accounts differ on who choreographed the original, and today it is performed by the song and dance troupe of the Xinjiang Arts Theatre. In July 1959 it won a gold award at the Seventh World Festival of Youth and Students in Vienna. It is the signature work of the dancer Ayitula, and later generations of Xinjiang dancers such as Reyihan and Dilnar have kept it on the stage ever since. It was later chosen as one of the most representative Chinese dance works of the twentieth century. In spring 2023 the troupe's dancer Zulimire Yiminjiang danced it again at the opening of the first Xinjiang Culture and Arts Festival.

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