New Year fireworks... a month late

The Thames will witness a spectacular firework display after all to celebrate the New Year - but not until 31 January.

Plans to herald the Chinese New Year with white fire racing along the river and up the tower of Tate Modern are being drawn up by the gallery and Chinese pyrotechnical wizard Cai Guo-Qiang.

The event will come as some compensation to Londoners following a decision by Mayor Ken Livingstone not to allow a display in central London on New Year's Eve, as it would attract too many people.

Cai, 45, who produced a similar spectacular in Vienna in 1999, wants to lay a trail of gunpowder starting under Blackfriars Bridge, moving along the surface of the Thames, across the Millennium footbridge and up to Tate Modern. The instant the trail reaches the top of the Tate's tower, computercontrolled rockets launched from the roof of the museum will explode to form a dragon's tail image in the air. The whole display will last just one minute.

The Tate is negotiating with the Port of London Authority, which controls river activity, and the Corporation of London, which owns the Millennium Bridge.

The gunpowder will be laid on floats above the water and extra ignition points will be installed in case it goes out. The bridge will have to close for half an hour to allow the work, entitled Ye Gong Hao Long or Mr Ye Who Loves Dragons, to go ahead.

Cai said: "The setting of the Tate Modern with the river and the bridge is a wonderful opportunity to do something spectacular."

The display will launch a season of performance pieces called Tate & Egg Live bringing together some of the biggest artistic and music performers in the world. Jenny Waldman, its co-programmer, said: "London will not have seen anything like it before.

"This is not a traditional firework display lasting 20 minutes with rockets exploding in the sky all around. It will only last one minute - blink and you'll miss it.

"We will be able to accommodate a lot of people on both banks of the Thames but we don't expect the huge numbers that the Mayor is worried about."