"Millennium Dunhuang" is coming to Yangpu. The world's first cave-style immersive experience theater, Ancient Sound of Dunhuang, will run as a residency production at the main stage of Theatre YOUNG from July 9 to 26, staging a total of 22 performances and giving Shanghai audiences a chance to experience the allure of Dunhuang culture up close—no travel required.

At a press conference and ticketing launch for the Shanghai premiere of the international touring production Ancient Sound of Dunhuang: Songs of a Golden Age, a work fusing music, dance, poetry, and visual arts, reporters learned that the show will open a 22-performance residency at the main stage of Theatre YOUNG from July 9 to 26. Born out of Ancient Sound of Dunhuang, the world's first cave-style immersive experience theater, this innovative production invites Shanghai audiences into an immersive exercise in "soundscape archaeology" across a thousand years of history.

Ancient Sound of Dunhuang: Songs of a Golden Age uses the story of Bai Xin, a Western Regions musician modeled on the Kuchean musician Sujiva, as its narrative thread, tracing his quest to bridge the musical traditions of East and West. Drawing on ancient scores excavated from the Library Cave, the production combines rigorous academic research with contemporary artistic reinvention.

Director Zhang Hua noted that the production takes Cave 220 of the Mogao Grottoes as its visual reference point and uses Dunhuang's ancient musical scores as the foundation for an entirely new body of compositions, mapping out a musical and geographical sweep from the legacies of the Han and Tang dynasties and the traditions of the Western Regions to the distinctive sound of Dunhuang. Through this multifaceted presentation, ancient music transcends the static displays of museum collections to become a living witness to the unbroken vitality of Silk Road civilization.

At the press conference, the Dunhuang Ancient Music Ensemble performed the solo piece Melody of Praise, while dancers brought to life mural choreography, including the Huxuan dance (also known as the Sogdian Whirling dance), Vajra dance, and waist drum dance, through a performance of Music Along the Silk Road. The production's 102 costumes and 16 musician figurine designs are drawn strictly from the classic mural iconography of Mogao Grottoes Cave 57 (the "Beautiful Bodhisattva" cave), Cave 220, and Cave 249, and are integrated with holographic imagery and stage machinery to create an all-encompassing immersive experience.

Throughout this performance period, Theatre YOUNG will release close to 1,000 discounted tickets and present a lineup of "Dunhuang Culture Month" activities, featuring a themed street fair, arts study programs, and refined art into campus communities. Tickets are currently on sale via the Theatre YOUNG official mini-program, damai.cn, maoyan.com, and other platforms.

By March 2026, Music Along the Silk Road has delivered more than 2,700 performances, welcomed over 1.25 million audience members, and achieved over 1.3 billion total online impressions. Its original ancient music album Scattering the Sands of Gold debuted worldwide in 2025. The project has featured in high-level exchange events including the Chinese Embassy in Cuba's "Happy Spring Festival," the NATAS Travel Fair, and the Greater Bay Area Film Concert. It has been listed in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's National Tourism Performing Arts Excellence Catalogue and received the China Best Tourism Industry Innovation Award.

This Shanghai premiere is an important milestone for Gansu's cultural "going global" effort and a significant step in the cultural and tourism cooperation between Gansu and Shanghai. It has quickly become one of the standout events in the cultural performance market of Yangpu and even Shanghai this summer. The event aims to use culture as a binding force to explore the rich historical legacy and modern-day significance of Dunhuang art, advance the dissemination of China's outstanding traditional culture across regions and sectors, and inject fresh momentum into the ongoing collaboration between the cultural and tourism industries of Gansu and Shanghai.