In the country of iris, white magnolias are in full bloom. On the evening of September 15th local time, the 47th World Skills Competition came to an end. As the host of the next World Championships, Shanghai presented a "Shanghai Period" artistic performance at the closing ceremo

In the country of iris, white magnolias are in full bloom. On the evening of September 15th local time, the 47th World Skills Competition came to an end. As the host of the next World Championships, Shanghai presented a "Shanghai Period" artistic performance at the closing ceremony. In just 10 minutes, the iconic landscape of Shanghai and the style of skilled craftsmen left a deep impression on the audience.

How is "Shanghai Time" drawn? Hu Qianqiu, chief director of the program and deputy general manager of Shanghai Radio and Television Station's Dragon TV Large Event Center, said "it's not easy" several times during an interview.

"This is a story with Shanghai as the stage, paper as the medium, and skills as the inspiration." She said that the main line of the show is the process from conception to birth of a set of paper art costumes that show the traditional Chinese mortise and tenon structure. The famous young dancer Zhu Jiejing plays the role of a Chinese female fashion designer. She continuously draws inspiration from Shanghai's urban landscape, skilled craftsmen and Shanghai-style intangible cultural heritage techniques, and cuts out a set of mortises that blend Chinese traditional culture and Shanghai-style urban temperament. Mao structure paper art clothing.

Clothing "plays the leading role", and naturally it cannot be separated from designers. The first words Zhang Zufang, a professor at the School of Fashion and Art Design of Donghua University, said when he saw reporters were, "I'm going to cry." Three months ago, she received an invitation from the director team and agreed to design a set of costumes for the show without saying a word. However, making clothes from renewable and environmentally friendly paper that can be worn, taken off, walked and jumped is much more difficult than imagined. Led by Zhang Zufang, the design team composed of teachers and students from Donghua University and the China Academy of Art revised drafts several times and finally decided on 20 sets of paper art costumes and 9 sets of inflatable costumes.

In the program, at the invitation of the female designer, models wearing unique clothes appeared on and around the stage. At the same time, a Shanghai-style paper-cut intangible cultural heritage inheritor was cutting a paper-cut shawl costume. She needs to complete the instant cutting of this costume during the performance and put it on a little girl of mixed Chinese and French descent, symbolizing the inheritance of Sino-French friendship from generation to generation. Then, the music reached its climax, the huge "invitation" on the stage was opened, and Shanghai's landmark Oriental Pearl Tower slowly rose.

"Did you know? This Oriental Pearl was raised by our stage teacher." Hu Qianqiu said that because the stage cannot be powered on, it can only be raised and lowered manually. "From the front to the backstage, everyone is working hard for the show, although a lot of hard work is not easy to see."

Not long ago, the domestic game "Black Myth: Wukong" became popular all over the world. Accompanied by the classic "Yun Gong Xun Yin", the "Monkey King" Sun Wukong also appeared on the stage of "Shanghai Time" and started a technical dialogue with Chinese skilled young people dancing street dance, pushing the atmosphere to a climax. The Monkey King is played by Hao Jie, a national first-class actor and actor from the Shanghai Peking Opera Theatre. Although he only performed for one minute, he devoted himself to the rehearsal. "I am very proud to represent the country and the quintessence of Peking Opera on such a stage, and to bring traditional culture through Modern expression reaches more people.”

The performance came to an end. The famous young singer Ayunga and the Shanghai 2026 World Skills Competition mascots Neng Neng and Qiaoqiao sang the theme song "Future Promise" together. Models wearing futuristic sci-fi costumes appeared around the stage. The LED screens on the costumes displayed the words "welcome to shanghai" and "worldskills2026", expressing a warm welcome to skilled youth around the world.

Finally, fireworks and lasers lit up the night sky in Lyon, and paper airplanes carrying only China’s invitations and blessings flew out from around the stage, telling the world: In 2026, let’s meet in Shanghai in the name of skills!