To create a dance drama, we should face our true self, true history and true human nature, well-known director and choreographer Tong Ruirui recalled her work, Deep in Memory, staged in 2018.

It was the second time she explored the survivors and witnesses of the Nanjing Massacre, when more than 300,000 Chinese were killed by Japanese invaders in six weeks beginning on Dec 13, 1937. It was 13 years after her debut stage work, Nanking 1937, in 2005.

Tong was speaking at the artists' conference of this year's Zhongguancun Dance Festival, which opened in Beijing on Sept 5 and ended Saturday.

The conference, attended by directors, choreographers, playwrights and scholars, was held to promote innovative cooperation between dance circles and other arts and technology fields, and to dig further into international operation and industrial development of dance dramas.

Tong's work, Soaring Wings: Journey of the Crested Ibis, in cooperation with playwright Luo Huaizhen, has enjoyed great popularity at home and abroad in recent years.

According to Tong, she is working on a realistic stage work about two generations of Chinese entrepreneurs grasping their opportunities during the four decades' of reform and opening-up. The work is expected to go on stage in January.