‘Action musical’ with a lot of China, a little Broadway

Thousands of life-size clay soldiers standing guard over the tomb of China’s first emperor were one of the 20th century’s great archeological finds -- and the inspiration for “Terracotta Warriors,” a multimillion-dollar, visually arresting Chinese “action musical” that makes its West Coast premiere at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts this Friday through Sunday.

Written, produced and directed by Dennis K. Law, with original music by Hao Wei Ya, choreography by Zhang Jian Ming, sets by film set designer Juhua Tu (“The Emperor and the Assassin”) and 350 sumptuous, historically based costumes by Qin period expert Mo Xiaomin, this epic imagines the life of Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BC), the brilliant, ruthless, immortality-obsessed founder of the Qin Dynasty.

Through a pageantry of dance, music, martial arts and battle sequences -- there is no dialogue -- more than 70 Chinese dancers enact a story of intrigue, forbidden love, conquest and even the creation of China’s Great Wall.

An “action musical” is “movement art, the beauty of the human body, combined with lavish visuals in costume and set design,” said Law, head of the Centre for Performing Arts in Vancouver, Canada, and its associated production company, Sight, Sound & Action, which put the show together. “I decided to use my Western perspective and take the fantastic elements of Chinese musical theatrical arts and weave them together in a way that can be appreciated by international audiences and doesn’t depend on language being translated.”

Elaborate set paintings, 60 by 30 feet, replace more usual set pieces and props, “so that our people can fly around, do body flips and move freely across the stage,” Law said.

The many scene changes and timed musical segments are similar to a Broadway show format, Law said, “but that’s as much as I want to anglicize this Chinese production. It is as authentically Chinese in terms of musical composition, costume and scenic design and body movement art as can be.”

“Terracotta Warriors,” which premiered in Canada in 2004, will return here in January for a four-day run at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre.

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-- Lynne Heffley