“Music of the Dance in Colorful Feathered Dress” is a very famous singing and dancing lyric in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) in China. It was created by Emperor Xuan after his visits to the Moon Palace.

On the night of the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, Luo Gongyuan, a Taoist priest, accompanied Emperor Xuan to admire the moon in the imperial garden. The emperor said, “if only we could fly to the Moon Palace!” Luo heard and chanted magic words and threw his walking atick into the sky, which flew straight to the moon and turned into a silver bridge to the Moon Palace. They went on to the bridge. They felt chilly and smelled a fragrance. A beautiful palace appeared in front of them, and at the gate stood a large and tall osmanthus tree, under which a white rabbit was pestling herbs.

The big tablet above the gatehouse read “The Cold Palace”. They reached the Moon Palace. They walked in and found that there were richly decorated jade buildings, beautiful and elegant in style, with exotic flowers and rare herbs everywhere. They saw hundreds of fairy maidens in fine white gossamer dancing lightly on the crystal-like floor to the melodious music wafting through the hall. The emperor was proficient in music and learned the beautiful tune by heart.

Then they walked around the whole palace and overlooked the vast earth. Finally, they took the bridge and came back to the earth. When they landed, the emperor felt a shake. Then he woke up, and found that he had just had a dream. He immediately wrote down the tune—“Music of the Dance in Colorful Feathered Dress”, which is the most popular and soft music in that dynasty.