As soon as CDPPAT was established, a government department gave this instruction: that CDPPAT gets help from the nation,s best artists. Help has come in great abundance, from Pianist Liu Shikun, singers Mao Amin and Cheng Fangyuan, Dancer Yang Liping, Art Director Zhang Fuxiang, Composer Zhang Qianyi and Conductor Jiang Xiebin. They have brought love as well as art.

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Zhang Jigang has created more than 260 dances and dance dramas and won many international and domestic prizes.

Why has CDPPAT won great successes on stages around the world? This is because the Chinese government respects the rights and interests of the disabled and gives vigorous support to disabled persons, performing activities, Zhang Jigang says. The Chinese government has sponsored five disabled persons, joint performances in a row. This is hardly possible in any other country. The success of special art in China can also be attributed to the care and support of the entire society. All artists serve as free art instructors for the disabled persons, performing art troupe. It can be said that behind every disabled performer stands a first-rate performing artist of the nation.

The United States and Europe are developed societies, but blind singers are often seen wandering in the streets. Special art there is still in a workshop state. In China, special artists have teamed up to realize the ideals and values of life.
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What CDPPAT offers to the audiences are brilliant performances that are without borders and display the beauty of human nature. How would special art demonstrate the state of life, reflect human creativity and realize Peoplefs artistic dreams? gWe have made numerous attemptsh, Zhang says. gThe dance Thousand-hand Bodhisattva creates an artistic image known to all. Bodhisattva saves all and sows kindness among people. We convey the theme of peace, friendship and love to the audience in a stirring artistic form, striking a chord among them, because peace, friendship and love have no boundaries and appeal to both the East and the West and to people of all races.h Wings of life, a five-person dance, indicates that adversity cannot prevent people with aspirations from seeking lifefs fulfillment. Five disabled young men, each wielding a pair of crutches, perform the dance. They demonstrate a bodily beauty that only disabled persons can display. Wholesome people cannot do it. This is the artistic charm that has conquered the world.

Night of the Chinese Dream

On the night of September 18, 2000, CDPPAT put on its fourth performance of its U.S. tour in the Carnegie Hall. Sang Lan, who had touched the heart of so many Americans with her struggle against paralysis, recited My Dream in fluent English, starting the night of gspecial arth in the theater. Twelve deaf-mute girls, who hear no sound, recreate the charms of Dunhuang art in the dance, Thousand-hand Bodhisattva. The Carnegie Hall might have made many a pianist of world fame nervous, but the blind pianist from China captivated the audience with his indisputable skills. Dream on the Wheelchair not only demonstrates the performerfs acrobatic feat but also conveys the beautiful dreams of the handicapped.

The Carnegie Hall burst into applause after applause. The audiences were struck with the special beauty of special art. The chairman of the UN General Assembly and representatives of more than 40 countries at the UN stood up, and so did the more than 3,000 audiences. They applauded with tears in their eyes. Many went onto the stage to embrace the performers. It took a long time for curtain calls to end.

The U.S. media gave ample coverage of the event. New Yorkers have seen all, but last night they had seen something that they had never seen before, a story goes. The disabled performers from China demonstrated the beauty, refinement and dignity of humanity. They touched the heart of Americans.

Land of Opportunities

Scholars agree that only in a country that respects and safeguards the rights and interests of the disabled can disabled persons lead a happy life and have the opportunity to realize the values of life.

China is home to more than 60 million disabled persons. The Chinese government has always paid great attention to safeguarding the human rights of the disabled and gives them special help and protection. It has established China Disabled Persons, Federation, which takes charge of affairs relating to disabled persons. The government safeguards and protects the rights and interests of the disabled in political, economic, cultural, social and family-life fields. The Constitution and other laws of the country stipulate that the state and society should help provide the disabled with employment, means of living and education. Government regulations provide that enterprises that employ a certain proportion of disabled persons shall enjoy tax exemption or reduction. The government has worked out a Poverty Relief Plan for the Disabled. Under the plan, the government has appropriated a special fund to help poverty-stricken disabled people shed poverty. A minimum living cost program covers disabled people in both urban and rural areas.

The Chinese government has also attached importance to meeting the spiritual and cultural needs of the disabled. Public cultural facilities such as cultural palaces, libraries and stadiums all provide services to disabled people. Many TV stations have added screen captions and begun broadcasting sign-language programs. A big number of disabled persons-oriented readers and publications have come off the press. Exhibitions on calligraphic works, paintings and handicraft articles made by disabled persons are often held around the country.
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The government has sponsored five joint art performances by disabled persons and three joint performances by deaf-mute students. Chinese disabled people have established their own sports association, and so have Chinese deaf-mutes. Chinese disabled athletes have won more than 1,600 gold medals and broken 169 world records at major international competitions, including Special Olympics and the Far East and South Pacific Games for the Disabled. More than 10 million disabled persons across the country take part in sports and physical exercises regularly.

The community of disabled performing artists in China consists of CDPPAT, which was established in 1987 with blessings from the government, and more than 100 disabled persons, performing art organizations. CDPPAT is the only professional disabled persons, troupe in the world and the only national disabled persons, troupe in China. It has put up performances in more than 30 countries and regions in the world as well as all over China.

With the care and love of the state and society, disabled persons in China are molding life in a special way and winning their own development and progress with an indomitable spirit. They are creating the same values of life as normal people.

Heart of Gold

On April 1, 1978, Zhou Zhou was born. The doctor told his parents that the baby suffers from a 21-pair-chromosome syndrome and is mentally retarded congenitally. Zhou Zhoufs father, a cello player of the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra, took care of little Zhou Zhou. At the sound of music, the baby would become quiet and listen intently. He liked the conductor of the orchestra best. At performance intervals, he would take up the baton and wield it. Later, workers of the orchestra placed a music stand behind the conductor,s podium, where Zhou Zhou would wield a pencil until the end of music. Ten years went by and the orchestra had had several conductors, but Zhou Zhou was always there,,conducting., Zhou Zhou, who does not understand music score but has a strong congenital understanding of music, has conducted several well-known orchestras at home and abroad. People cannot but believe that this young man, whose IQ is less than half of that of a normal person, is a beautiful,puzzle, God has created for humanity.

Tai Lihua had good looks, a sweet voice and a captivating figure. But a fever had deprived little Lihua of her hearing. At seven, she enrolled in a school for deaf-mutes. A course on rhythmic movement at the school let Lihua feel the rhythm of the elephant-leg drum. She decided to learn dancing. How could she do it without hearing the music? But Tai Lihua executed the most enchanting dancing movements. In 1992 she participated in a dance drama performance in La Scala Theater in Milan, Italy, as the only disabled dancer. She has performed her solo dance, The Soul of the Peacock, in more than 20 countries with the disabled persons, performing art troupe. Fans recognize her as the glittle beautiful peacockh.

Wang Xuefeng had a soft-bone disease at childhood. With seriously deformed spine and legs, Wang has grown to less than one meter tall. But, with determination, he learned to play erhu, a two-stringed Chinese violin, from his father, also a disabled person. In 1997 his erhu performance, Selling Grain to the State, won a second-class prize at a joint disabled persons, performance in Heilongjiang province. In September 2001, he won a special honor award at the Fifth All-China Disabled Persons, Joint Performance and joined CDPPAT. The plaintive notes of his Reflections of the Moon on Two Ponds have brought up tears from countless numbers of audiences.
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Disabled artists are invited to autograph for foreign audience.

Sun Yan, a blind pianist, does not see the black and white keys of a piano. But striking the keys, he can produce the sound of gurgling streams, the breathing of the forests and the roaring of the high seas. Serious rheumatism forced Gan Lirong, an actress, to lie on the bed for ten years. But she has stood up and found back her sweet voice. With a song titled Sentimental Attachment she wrote and composed herself, she won three awards at the Fifth All-China Disabled Persons, Joint Performance. Huang Yangguang lost both arms at the age of five. He has been meeting the challenges of life with his legs. In his dance, Green Rice Seedlings, he carries seedlings on an armless shoulder and irrigates the field with legs. Every artist of CDPPAT has had a bitter, difficult experience. But they have all overcome seemingly insurmountable difficulties and come out the winner. They all have a heart of gold.

The curtain rose and fell. Audiences were touched, moved and enchanted. Performances by the disabled artists of CDPPAT lasted 120 minutes. During the time, applause erupted more than 70 times. My Dream does not just give art to people. It demonstrates the strength of the human spirit in the most convincing manner possible: the artists themselves serving as role models of this spirit.


By: WANG SHUIXIA, YANG XIAOFENG & GAO JIANGUO