The dance drama The Peacock is in four parts: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. It is a story about maturation, human nature, living and love as well as the interplay and fusion between life and cosmic forces. Each character in the dance drama represents different facets of human nature - light and enlightenment, dedication and sacrifice, fear and stubborn greed – which are all common features of Man. Human weaknesses are revealed time and again in the complex and painful entanglements faced by the characters in the drama, yet in the end, through dedication and love, they find the answer to life in the rotation of the seasons. This is at once a story about a peacock and more so an allegory for humanity. An ancient allegory on the surface, it is nonetheless aptly relevant to the vulnerable, conflicting inner soul of us today. In it we find love and hatred, crime and punishment, infatuation and disorientation, jealousy and vanity, forgiveness and repentance, enlightenment and coming to terms… Prelude Freedom is an inborn quest. Man tries to break free from cages visible or invisible, but can they escape from the laws of nature? Spring: Budding life Wild flowers are budding in the forest. Nature is quietly waking from its lull. A peacock comes out in spring and dances an ode to youth, pristine and free. There is a solo dance by Yang Liping called The Spirit of the Peacock. Summer: The exuberance of youth In the forest, rich flora is blooming and celebrating their prime in life. Our heroine (Yang Liping) enters in her glorious dress and dances to the music of Peacocks in Love. Life nourished by love blossoms out like the exuberant summer. But the peacock couple’s happiness is soon marred, when the beautiful dress rouses the jealousy of the crow. The very image of darkness, the crow descends into the peacock community with the intention of snatching the beautiful female. The male peacock (Wang Di) fights it for dear life. The theme of Peacocks in Love reappears, only this time with the tragic tone of separation and death. Autumn: After maturation is sacrifice When prosperity has reached its zenith, the next inevitable phase is decline. Time is a witness to life's joys and sorrows. The desolation of autumn sets in like life's misery, with the ode of pristine lyricism replaced by struggles for selfish gains and vain glory. Winter: The calm of nirvana It is nothingness in the grey sky and stillness on the lake in the frigid cold. Life dances with the gods in the wind, while the enlightened soul passes calmly from life to death amidst the snow. It is winter; our heroine expresses her grief for her lover in a slow dance of sorrow. The peacock spirit, once freely flying in the sky, fell to earth and tasted love and hate, freedom and incarceration, and the ordeal of life and death, and is now finally meeting the gods. The winter peacock has shed its splendid outfit, as if life has settled back to a state of ordinariness from a stint of affluence and opulence. The pure, pristine state of the Spirit of the Peacock returns.