The Chinese dance drama "Mulan," presented by Ningbo Performance & Arts Group, was staged on September 18 at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York, where the 2,586-seat auditorium sold out, according to a report from Yongpai. Emily Wilcox, a professor at the College of William & Mary who studies Chinese ethnic dance, gave a lecture before the performance.
Wilcox had seen the production twice before. In September 2023 it made its American debut with six shows at the Boch Center in Boston and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In April 2026, as China Performing Arts Group and Ningbo Performance & Arts Group prepared another overseas tour and asked her to write a letter of recommendation, she bought a ticket and watched it a second time in Shanghai. The report says she first travelled to China in 2002 as a Harvard University student with the Harvard Dance Group, and later trained in Chinese ethnic dance at the Beijing Dance Academy.
Speaking of the third viewing, Wilcox said the dance drama turns Mulan from a one-dimensional hero into a multifaceted and vivid ordinary person, and that it holds a careful reflection on war and a detailed portrayal of women's circumstances, which she called highly relevant in today's world, according to the report. The report states that the production has won major awards in China.
After the lecture, the report says, an elderly woman thanked Wilcox and said the talk had helped her understand the Eastern dance drama, while sisters who once lived in Nanjing said the performance rekindled their curiosity about Chinese culture. It adds that dance needs no translation, because the body itself is a shared language.