Intangible Cultural Heritage Carnival in Light and Shadow: 2025 Lishui Photo Festival Kicks Off Cultural Feast with “Intangible Cultural Heritage Parade”
On November 8, the 6th International Photography Seminar and the 2025 Lishui Photo Festival opened in Lishui City, Zhejiang Province. This city, renowned for photography, commenced the event with a distinctive “Intangible Cultural Heritage Parade” — 11 contingents marched along a 2.8-kilometer route through the urban area, blending traditional skills with modern creativity, and revitalizing millennia-old culture through the interplay of light and shadow.
The “Intangible Cultural Heritage Parade” activity in Lishui City. Photo provided by Lishui News Media Center.
This parade brought together representative teams from Lishui’s nine counties (cities and districts) and two universities, showcasing a rich array of intangible cultural heritage, ranging from sword and celadon ceramics to wooden arch bridges, lantern dances, and folk opera. Students from Lishui Vocational and Technical College and Lishui University performed dragon and lion dances, ethnic dances, and street dances, among other forms, creating a dialogue between tradition and youth, and conveying a new generation’s understanding and innovation of intangible cultural heritage.
The county contingents each displayed their unique charm. The Longquan contingent reenacted ancient celadon-throwing and sword-forging scenes, embodying the “Soul of Sword and Celadon.” The Qingtian contingent showcased the culture of the hometown of overseas Chinese with fish lanterns, hundred-bird lanterns, and stone carving art. Yunhe created a “Fairy-tale City” using wooden toy craftsmanship and terraced-field scenery. Qingyuan demonstrated “Coordinated Mushroom and Forest Cultivation” and wooden arch bridge construction techniques, conveying the wisdom of harmony between humans and nature.
The event was not only a visual feast but also a cultural dialogue. Contingents from Jinyun (“Yellow Emperor Sacrificial Ceremony”), Suichang (“Banchun Quannong” ceremony encouraging spring ploughing), Songyang (“Gaoqiang” opera), and Jingning (“She Ethnic Marriage Customs”) integrated ancient rituals with modern aesthetics, presenting the “living inheritance” of China’s intangible cultural heritage in the new era.
Lishui currently boasts three UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage items, 21 national-level intangible cultural heritage items, and hundreds of inheritors. Through the format of “Imagery + Intangible Cultural Heritage,” this year’s photography festival brings intangible cultural heritage into the streets and into the lenses, making it a window for photographers worldwide to capture the vitality of Chinese culture.
As drumbeats echoed and colored lanterns shone, ancient skills resonated in harmony with the modern city. Lishui presented to the world an image of an open, youthful, and creative Eastern city—a “Landscape Cultural City” where tradition is being redefined through light and shadow.
(By Han Bingyu)
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