NEW YORK—Sherry Kornfeld and James Fraiman were among a full house at the final production of the Chinese New Year Splendor at New York's prestigious Radio City Music Hall on Saturday night.
Kornfeld, a graphic designer, was stunned by the Splendor's visuals.
"First of all the colors of the costumes... the brights were just so beautiful and everything felt like it was sun-kissed, like the sun, you know? I loved the cinematography backgrounds, the backgrounds juxtaposed with the performers in front of them, I thought it was very beautifully done," she said.
This impression also extended to the show's costuming. "The headdresses were magnificent and how they coordinated the backdrops with the costuming and the colors…it was kind of like picking flowers from nature and wearing them in magnificence."
"It was beautiful, beautifully done, very exciting to see," said Kornfeld.
Fraiman, a photographer, said the show had the effect of helping him in his craft.
"First of all, the juxtaposition of those backgrounds with the different colors and the light of the performance; for example, when we started out with the first skit "Creation," when I saw The Forbidden City it brought it all to life," he said.
"It was unbelievable, and yes, it gave me ideas and made me look at things from a different angle—it made me look outside of my usual way of looking at things and that's what I liked about this show."
They were both highly impressed with the Erhu performance by Qi Xiaochun. The erhu is a two-stringed Chinese instrument, known for its wide range of notes and haunting sound. "What I liked about the Erhu is that at the moments it was [on stage] it made me cry. It sounded like a human voice," said Fraiman.
"The erhu, I've never heard it before. It's magnificent, she played it magnificently. It just touched my soul, it was just magnificent," said Kornfeld.
Kornfeld also remarked on the show's performances depicting the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese regime.
"I think that as people of the human race that we very much share an ideal of wanting to have the freedom to express ourselves and to practice our beliefs in an environment where we're free to do so and able to practice without any persecution, so I was very touched by that."
She liked the universal messages imparted by some of the numbers.
"There were two lines in the song of the tenor who sang in the beginning; he was saying that in awareness lies the power of hope. And then when the soprano sang, the use of goodness within to weigh right or wrong I think are really beautiful messages that are truly universal for all of us. "It's wonderful to come to a culture and experience a culture that's totally different but who we can find so much in common with."
Kornfeld also mentioned how the show portrayed the balance between the masculine and feminine "as it was meant to be." "I was very much reminded again of the feminine and the masculine as it was meant to be, the women are very demure and beautiful in a graceful and almost modest way. And the men, their power is there but very humble and quiet and I just very much appreciated that."
Fraiman said he got a lot out of both the performing arts and music qualities of the show.
"It's interesting how with music through dance you can express much more than those same words would have expressed if somebody had just spoken them. The symbolism... it says things that no human words can express. It's Beautiful, it's powerful."
The Divine Performing Arts international touring companies land next in Germany and Japan. For information on all upcoming shows, please visit: www.DivinePerformingArts.org. The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Chinese New Year Splendor.
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