Located in the vast land of southern Hebei Province, Handan is a renowned city for its history and culture. A National Civilized City, it is also an industrial city that has boomed after the founding of New China. Since the 1950s, Zhou Enlai, the first Premier of the People’s Republic of China, and his contemporaries had showed great concern and support to the economic, social and cultural development in Handan. The exhibition features valuable photos that stood as testimony to the attention and support of Zhou Enlai and his contemporaries to “Wawa Troupe” (today’s Dongfeng Opera Troupe) in Handan. They are vivid records of the stories at the time.

Mr. Wang Zhenguo was a young actor of the Wawa Troupe at the time. For a long time, he has made unremitting efforts to collect, sort through and preserve these precious photos. Thanks to the generous support of the Publicity Department of the CPC Hebei Provincial Committee, the CPC Handan Municipal Committee and the Handan Municipal Government, the Exhibition Project Group of the NMC researched, examined and evaluated the private collection of Mr. Wang, and conducted elaborate planning for and design of this themed exhibition. This is the first exhibition ever on the theme of “Premier Zhou and Handan Wawa Troupe”.

The exhibition is organized chronologically on different themes. The static photos and dynamic videos are jointly displayed to highlight the theme and enrich the contents of the exhibition. Featuring 225 photos, 13 calligraphy works and five congratulatory letters, the exhibition is presented in four parts, namely, Kind Attention of the Older Generation of Revolutionaries, Artists’ Contribution, New Progress of Dongfeng Troupe, and Plum Blossom Award Winners. In addition, the modern display means such as TV screen and large-screen projection are applied to show the art films about Yu operas, news, feature films, videos of Yu opera performance, among others.