Commissioned by the Opus 21 ensemble, this mixed sextet is a musical realization of Chinese clay figurines of the Eastern Han (25-220 A.D.). Shapes of the enraptured storyteller, the vivid acrobat, and the moving dancers are in highly exaggerated forms and postures, in large and sweeping movements — the innocent and bold images symbolize the strength, motion, and speed, as the beauty of the crude and primitive power of humanity in its conquest of the material world.