The percussion of feet striking the ground — quick, insistent, then suddenly restrained before the next surge — carries the atmosphere of the plateau into the theater. In final rehearsals, dancers in Tibetan costumes and specially made tap shoes carry speed, force and changes of mood across the stage.

These rhythms will anchor Tashi Shabdro, a title meaning "auspicious dance", when it makes its Beijing debut on Saturday and Sunday. Its premiere coincides with this year's Serfs' Emancipation Day in the Xizang autonomous region.

Billed as one of China's first full-length Tibetan tap dance dramas, the production is built around Lhaze Doishey, a folk dance from Xizang listed as national intangible cultural heritage. It also incorporates elements from other traditional Tibetan dance forms, such as Dingri Lhoshey, Lhokha Gorshey and Nagchu Sheychen.

Huang Doudou, the work's artistic director and vice-chair of the China Dancers Association, describes the production as the first step toward expanding the art into a sustained theatrical narrative.

"With its long history and distinct artistic features, Tibetan tap dance in many forms has long been popular in daily life and on stage," he says.

"But expecting it to convey a complete story throughout an entire performance is a different challenge, particularly on the plateau."

The challenges were both artistic and physical.

The production took about three years to complete and passed through three successive choreographic teams. High-altitude conditions posed a constant obstacle. Huang recalls experts watching rehearsals and holding discussions "with oxygen tanks on their backs", while the cast struggled with the physical demands of sustaining long performances.

The creative leap was equally demanding. Performers from inland regions and Xizang were asked to transform a form often associated with celebration into a vehicle for complex emotion.

Tsedrob, a young actor in the cast, says that the shift was the hardest part.

"People often see Tibetan tap dance as festive," he says.

"But it can also carry sorrow and anger. The real difficulty is finding a way for the footwork to express a character's inner life."

Tsedrob, excited about the coming premiere, adds that he hopes the audience will see Tibetan tap dance as it truly is, both in style and in spirit.

At the heart of the production lies a fundamental shift — from viewing dance as a stand-alone performance to embracing it as a narrative language. The creative team says the work tries to preserve the cultural roots of traditional Tibetan tap dance, while pushing choreography, staging and dramatic expression further. The result is an attempt to give the old folk art new life on the contemporary stage.

Director Wei Dong says the idea initially seemed almost impossible: selecting one highly recognizable style from Xizang's many regional dance traditions and transforming it into a full-length drama. The team built the structure around a precise rhythm, "a small climax every three minutes and a bigger one every five", while ensuring the movement vocabulary remained grounded in Tibetan forms.

To keep the sound of that vocabulary alive, the team also experimented with live stage sound, using specially designed tap shoes, so that audiences could hear the dancers' footwork more clearly and directly. The aim was to keep the creation recognizably Tibetan even as it moved to a more contemporary theatrical form, Wei adds.

The story spans two generations. It follows an aid doctor, his daughter and a Tibetan family whose lives remain intertwined across time through sacrifice, memory and inheritance. According to Liu Shizhong, deputy head of the publicity authorities of Xizang, the work seeks to tell a Chinese story of unity, dedication and inheritance through dance.

For Hu Yuting, one of the lead performers, emotional connections are carried not only through movement but also through symbolic objects on stage. She points to symbols such as the dranyen, a traditional Tibetan lute, saying they help her internalize the characters' connections and express the deep emotional ties between Han and Tibetan ethnic groups.

Beyond the narrative lies another layer involving cultural collaboration between Xizang and Beijing. Tashi Shabdro is guided by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and co-produced by regional publicity authorities, the China Dancers Association, a Xizang-based cultural investment group, and a Beijing aid program office.

For its makers, the Beijing premiere is not the finish line. Huang says the work will continue to evolve after opening, drawing on expert advice, audience responses and online feedback.

The team also hopes to bring the production to more cities in China and eventually to international audiences.

Back in the rehearsal hall, the dancers begin again. The steps return — fast, then slow, then suddenly sharp. An old rhythm is being asked to do something new by telling a story all the way to the end.

Palden Nyima contributed to this story.