Dai Theatre Learns Its Lines in Mangshi

In Mangshi, traditional Dai theatre has entered school life through performances and teaching. A National Ethnic Affairs Commission report in 2023 says professional troupes restaged works including E Leng's Marriage, Fortune Picture and E Bing and Sang Luo for school audiences. The titles matter: they keep the account grounded in specific repertory rather than treating “Dai theatre” as a generic dance display.

At school, students encountered opera through live performances, workshops and instruction in vocal style and gesture. The program paired specialist troupes with teachers and inheritors, giving the named plays a setting for transmission: a script was not only staged for an audience but presented as a form with sounds and movements that could be learned.

The same program included intangible-heritage practitioners visiting schools and using demonstrations, media, instruction and hands-on activity. It reported more than 3,000 student participation instances across activities; this is an administrative count, not a measure of long-term fluency or future performer numbers.

For visitors, theatre is best approached as a living dramatic form with language, music, gesture and narrative—not a short costume interlude. A school performance is one setting among many. The named plays and the effort to teach singing and movement reveal how a tradition can be made accessible to younger audiences while retaining stories that local practitioners continue to carry.