Feature: Chinese beats steal audience's hearts at international drum festival in Cairo

The audience stood up in joy when China's Shanghai Oriental Drum and Dance Group performed Tuesday at the opening day of the International Festival for Drums and Traditional Arts held here.

"The show is beyond words. It is my first time to see Chinese performers playing music live and the performance is really marvelous," 18-year-old Esraa Lotfy told Xinhua.

Lotfy, who came to the event with her friends, said she enjoyed the Chinese music and beats, although they are totally different from the Western and Egyptian ones.

"I did not feel that I am listening to a strange genre of music, I felt it and it honestly touched my heart," she added as her friends spontaneously swayed to the beats of the Chinese performance.

The International Festival for Drums and Traditional Arts is part of the 2016 Sino-Egyptian Culture Year jointly launched by Egypt and China to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations in a bid to intensify their already strong cultural ties.

With a message of "Drums Dialogue for Peace," the festival brings together musicians from 20 countries to share their musical vision and encourage cultural dialogue.

Held in Cairo's renowned Salah El Din Citadel on April 19-25, the event will see the participation of bands from Asia, Africa and Europe with their drums and traditional folk arts.

In addition to performances, participating countries also showed their handicraft products to present their own cultures.

India was the guest of honor of this year's festival.

On the opening day, all groups performed live on the stage. The audience responded very warmly to the Chinese performance.

"My heartbeats were tuned with the drums rhythms of the Chinese band," Mohamed Sultan, a university lecturer told Xinhua.

"I brought my mother and my two aunts tonight to enjoy the music. For us, the Chinese performance was among the best," Sultan said as the audience around reacted to the show happily.

Oriental Drum and Dance Group, a band originally from the northern Chinese province of Shanxi but now based in Shanghai, has 13 performers participating in the event.

"What we are playing is known as Jiangzhou Drum, which requires a combination of power and beauty," performer Shi Xiaocong told Xinhua.

He said the group will perform at least three times in the next five days, including one solo performance at the Citadel Wednesday evening.

The young man said it was not their best tonight and "we still have better shows to perform that will amuse everyone."

He said it is a very good opportunity for his band to play with drummers from all around the world as music is a common language that unites all nations.

"What interested me most are those African drummers playing with djembes. They played with an original taste which literally shocked me," he said. "The audience has been unbelievably passionate," he said. "I am thrilled by their involvements in the show." Endi