About 80 people including Yu Ping, Chief of the Section of Art of Ministry of Culture, Jia Zuoguang, Honorary Chairman of Chinese Dancers Association, Bai Shuxiang, Chairman of Chinese Dancers Association, Feng Shuangbai, Secretary of Chinese Dancers Association Party and Vice Chairman , Li Yushan, Vice Chairman and dancers from provinces, autonomous regional and municipalities such as Beijing and folk dance artists and directors of Xinjiang to join or visit the performance troupes attended the“National Forum on the Art of Folk Dances”.

Li Yi, Standing Committee member of the Party Committee of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Minister of Publicity Ministry, attended the opening ceremony and delivered an important speech. He said, generations of people of all nationalities living in Xinjiang have created, absorbed, integrated and developed “harmonious but different” ethic cultures with their wisdom, intelligence and open-minded and tolerate attitude, and among them, the musical folk dances of different nationalities in Xinjiang are the most prominent and won the reputation of “Land of Songs an Dances” for Xinjiang with their unique characteristics and abundant content. Various ethnic dances in Xinjiang have been melted deeply into the blood of Xinjiang people and have become an important part of their social life. Li Yi said, it would always be a serious task for the staff and experts from all levels involved in cultural art management in Xinjiang to sort up the rich folk art resources in Xinjiang, innovate on the basis of protection and succession, implement the conversion strategies of advanced cultural art resources, realize a qualitative leap from folk living art to stage art, form a group of the Xinjiang cultural characteristics and quality brands and actively explore an advanced road for modernized cultural development inheriting  ancient Xinjiang culture and excellent ethnic cultural traditions. For a long time, a large number of dance artists and theoretical researchers in Xinjiang have kept on practicing, exploring and innovating and have made a certain achievement in dance creation and theoretical studies on the art of dance; in terms of theoretical studies on the art of dance, there are many important achievements in recent years, which has filled the blank of folk dance research in Xinjiang. Li Yi hoped that the experts and scholars should make full use of the platform of the first Xinjiang (China) International Folk Dance Festival and “National Forum on the Art of Folk Dances” to exhibit the traditional folk dances of Xinjiang and the innovational achievements and keep on learning, exchanging and refer to other dances. Future study and research the current status, advantages and disadvantages and the development trends of Xinjiang folk dances with open-minded, frank and tolerate attitudes.

Experts and scholars including Jia Zuoguang, Taliti·Tuerdi, Bai Shuxiang, Nusileti· Wajita, Feng Shuangbai, Kulaixi·Rejiepu, Li Yushan and Du Zhe made wonderful speeches. They discussed the subjects of “the Current Status and Future of Ethnic Traditional Dances”, “ the Heritage, Protection and Development of Ethnic Traditional Dances” and “Success and Failure of Chinese Ethnic Folk Dance Creation in Recent Years” and how to inherit and how to innovate while inheriting based on the combination of the current status and trends of overseas and domestic ethnic dances and put forward their own suggestions about the deposited, characteristic and colorful folk dances in Xinjiang. Some of them are directors and performers with experience about dance for many years, and some of them are experts engaged in theoretical studies on dances and they attach great importance on the creation and development of dance art in Xinjiang and all other nationalities. Therefore, their far-sighted discussions are based on actuality, which enlighten the co-participants to a great extent.