Songs from the Yellow Earth is a collaboration between Chinese Theatre Works and world-famous theater artist Peter Schumann, founder and director of the Bread & Puppet Theater. It incorporates literary and operatic ruminations on war from classic Chinese opera and poetic works from the "Book of Songs". These sources refer to the time of the legendary Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China. His fall and the rise of the Han Dynasty has strong parallels to contemporary political events and upheavals.

The co-artistic directors of CTW, Kuang-Yu Fong and Stephen Kaplin have been creating works that fuse together Asian and Western performance modes since 1995. They have both performed with Mr. Schumann and Bread and Puppet on numerous occasions for over 20 years. Both have been deeply inspired by Mr. Schumann´s path-breaking work which has been among the most important influences on socially engaged theater companies worldwide. In this, his first shadow production, he brings his penetrating moral perspective to design for the shadow screen a graphic exploration of light and darkness. Songs from the Yellow Earth has been in developement under Mr. Schumann´s direction by members of both companies since 2005. It blends Western and Asian shadow puppetry and mask work with traditional Chinese opera vocal techniques and choreography. The production features musical improvisation on violin by Mr. Schumann together with a cast of Chinese opera artists, musicians and puppeteers from both CTW and Bread and Puppet companies.