🎤 What started as a classroom stress-relief experiment in 2005 has blossomed into one of China’s most heartwarming cultural movements. Director Zhang Chenting marks 20 years this month of amplifying children’s unfiltered voices through her groundbreaking musical project—created by kids, for kids.
💡 Inspired by her students’ creative coping mechanisms, Zhang threw out the rulebook. ‘Why should adults always write children’s stories?’ she wondered. Her solution? A rotating cast of 8- to 15-year-olds co-creating scripts about school pressures, family dynamics, and big childhood dreams.
🌄 From Shanghai studios to remote mountain villages, the production has become a cultural bridge. ‘In Tibet last year, a shy 12-year-old wrote a rap about yak herding that brought the house down,’ Zhang shared with NewspaperAmigo. ‘That’s when I knew we’d created something universal.’
📈 With 137 school performances in 2025 alone, the project now doubles as a live social barometer. Recent themes? Climate anxiety (‘Will polar bears need AC?’) and AI friendships (‘My chatbot knows me better than Mom!’).
🌟 As Gen Alpha’s voices grow louder, Zhang’s team is prepping a 2026 AR-enabled tour. ‘The kids want holographic audiences next,’ she laughs. ‘Who are we to say no?’
