It took Qin Renjun two days from his home in Yinjiang Tujia and Miao autonomous county, in Southwest China's Guizhou province, to reach Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, the long journey winding through mist-shrouded mountains and sleepy villages.
He carried his hand-carved Nuo Opera masks and a quiet resolve.
Arriving at a studio in Hangzhou, where a young audience had already begun streaming into the venue to film the reality program, My Show, he entered a world where pop idols and centuries-old traditions collide in real time.
Qin was born into a family that practices an enigmatic cultural element, Nuo, which imbues the natural sublimity of Fanjing Mountain with a sense of mystery. Nuo culture encapsulates a range of cultural practices. It can be a form of dance, an opera style, a ritual, or an acrobatic performance, passed down since ancient times by people hoping to invite good fortune into their lives while seeking to ward off evil spirits. Nuo Opera is ancient and preserved in his home.
By the age of 5, Qin was trailing his father through villages, performing rituals to bless the locals. "I thought it was just fun as a kid," he recalls. "But it quickly became my duty, my family's pride."
After college, he rejected a stable job to preserve the ancient art. "Every piece I collected, every manuscript I copied, felt like pulling Nuo Opera back from the edge of oblivion," he says.
He traveled across Guizhou, gathering scattered elderly practitioners, recording performances, and reconstructing traditions ignored by the world.
For Qin, appearing on modern stages like My Show, adapting tradition for young audiences and broadcasting live online, gives the art form new life.
"I want young people to see it, love it, and keep it alive," says Qin, who took about 20 Nuo Opera masks to the show, all handmade by local craftsmen and each representing a different character in the opera. With diverse means of artistic expression, the iconic masks worn by the performers are a core element of the performance. Usually decorated in bright colors and with extravagant expressions, the wooden masks represent different characters.
The reality show is produced by Tencent Music Entertainment Group and is scheduled to be streamed in June, but with a singular twist: each performance must be produced on a budget of just 10,000 yuan ($1,477).
"It's not about spectacle," says Wu Kefei, the show's director. "Pop idols aren't just performers here; they are curators, producers and storytellers. The small budget forces them to focus on the story, on the meaning, on the culture they are presenting."
For the Hangzhou venue, the studio is spacious, with a very high ceiling and a large floor area that can accommodate 800 to 1,000 people, and fans sit very close to the performers, he adds.
In one episode of the show, Duan Yixuan, a young pop singer known for her emotive vocals and fluid choreography, worked with Qin on adapting her original song Eternal Lament into a new production.
Guided by Qin, each mask she wore on stage carried a character and a story. The weight of wood and paint was literal and metaphorical, pressing on her shoulders as she learned to move in ways her usual pop routines never demanded.
