Digital protection saves Wuxi cultural heritages

Yuqi dragon dance requires over 100 people to hold the 200-meter dragon up on poles. [Photo/VCG]

Over time, many ancient historical and cultural sites degrade and are damaged without proper care, making digital protection a key insurance policy for making sure we are all able to experience these things in the future.

Wuxi government has applied digital protection to Wuxi national intangible cultural heritages since 2014, and plans to the project within two to three years, including project collection, storage, recording, filing and display.

Various Wuxi national intangible cultural heritages have been digitally preserved, including Huishan clay figurines, Wuxi embroidery and Liuqing bamboo carving.

The digital technology is also being used to preserve cultural art forms such as the Yuqi dragon dance from Wuxi's Yuqi town, which was shot on Nov 21 by a camera team using motion capture techniques, to give the provincial intangible cultural heritage skill a new lease of digital life.

Yuqi dragon dance requires 100 people to hold a 200-meter dragon puppet up on poles. They raise and lower the dragon making it "dance" as they wind through the masses to the sounds of horns, drums and gongs.

The camera team used five HD cameras and two unmanned remote cameras to record the 400-year-old traditional performance from multiple views.

Next on the list for digital preservation is Wuxi zhima (woodprint joss paper).