The 2nd Nanchong International Puppet Week opened on June 1 at Nanchong Grand Theatre.

Fourty-six?shadow puppet art teams involving some 700 people from both home and abroad gave more than 150 performances during the week.

“Camel bells along the Silk Road,”a large-scale original puppet show of Nanchong, debuted during the week.

The show, set against the backdrop of the Belt and Road development, is performed all by young inheritors of the puppet show art and tells the story of a Tang dynasty official’s journey to the Western regions.

The story, intricate and moving, involves love, friendship and adventure.

The stage design is stunningly beautiful and the performance won sustained applause.

Different to a traditional puppet show, “Camel bells along the Silk Road”contains a number of nontraditional elements such as belly dance and is a great mixture of Sichuan’s distinctive music and foreign music.

In addition to the opening ceremony, the 46 puppet art teams also took part in a number of other activities such as making exchanges with their foreign counterparts, performing in communities and schools, attending the puppet show and shadow play carnival and salon, and promoting their world tours.

Apart from indoor theatres, three outdoor stages were set up for performance and there were two branch venues for the event in Langzhong Ancient City and Yilong County seat respectively.

Around 500,000 people were estimated to have watched the performances.

Nanchong is the birthplace of the time-honored and unique North Sichuan puppet show. The art was among the first national intangible cultural heritages in Nanchong.

The puppet show event in Nanchong, inaugurated in 2014, is held every three years.