NEW YORK-New York, brace yourself for Divine Performing Arts' magnum opus!
From January 30 to February 9, two Divine Performing Arts dance companies currently on tour in the United States and Canada converge on New York at Radio City Music Hall to ring in the Chinese New Year with Chinese New Year Splendor.
Considered the showplace of the nation, Radio City Music Hall is the world's largest indoor theater, and an appropriate venue for this performance. Divine Performing Arts comprises over a hundred of the world's foremost classically trained Chinese dancers, choreographers, musicians, and vocalists. The show also features its own Divine Performing Arts orchestra, which is the world's only formal orchestra that permanently includes both Western and Chinese instruments.
New Tang Dynasty TV (NTDTV), which produces the New York performances, started a Chinese New Year show tradition at Radio City in January 2006. In 2007, Divine Performing Arts (DPA) became a creative partner and held a series of nine Chinese New Year shows, with an audience of nearly 55,000. This season, DPA formed two separate companies, which have already played in 21 North American cities over the past six weeks, leading up to this grand 15-show homecoming with an estimated audience of 90,000.
The aim of DPA is to revive traditional Chinese performing arts and present the Chinese culture that flourished throughout China's 5,000 years of history, during dynasties prior to the Cultural Revolution, such as the Tang Dynasty which many consider China's Golden Age.
"The [communist] Party is afraid of the arts, of their power," says DPA orchestra maestro Mr. Rutang Chen. "And that is why they try to control them. We're doing the opposite: We set them free. We let them be a force for good, or even change."
The show opened on Wednesday evening to rave reviews.
David Dutkanicz, Director of Public Relations & Publications at MidAmerica Productions, said during intermission of the first show: "It was fantastic. So many colors. You can see the parallels between Western and Eastern forms, except that here it is with much more flavor and color. The most striking is the presentation."
He further added, "The 'Fruits of Goodness' had a great story and one could feel the redemption that I walk away with today."
This year the Chinese New Year, which follows the traditional lunar calendar, falls on Feb. 7, and Chinese New Year Splendor will play at Radio City Music Hall through Feb. 9 before heading off to complete a tour of at least 65 cities across Europe, Asia, and Australia with an estimated world-wide audience of 600,000. For more information visit http://www.divineperformingarts.org .
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