FRANKFURT—Classically-trained dance school owner and head of the Slawia Ensemble, Dagmar von Garnier was deeply impressed by the "soul" conveyed through the dances of the Divine Performing Arts Chinese Spectacular at the Jahrhunderthalle theater in Frankfurt Sunday evening.
"It was very impressive, it was meditative. If you have the sense that energy can be transported through dance then it reaches a very deep place. It really touches your soul," said von Garnier.
Describing the energy of the dances as "very powerful," von Garnier said she particularly liked the dance "Nymphs of the Sea." "You can see what can be achieved by movement in order to get that impression of water."
"It's not like some Russian ensembles. There, everything is so strictly measured. Here it's always the soul speaking. Beau-ti-ful," she enthusiastically remarked.
Another favorite piece of von Garnier's was "The Risen Lotus Flower," a dance depicting a prison scene where three Falun Gong practitioners are beaten by the Chinese communist regime, one eventually to death. However, in her death she is transported to a heavenly paradise, rising out of the suffering. "Because we hear on the daily news that torture is happening [in China], but to experience how this can be transformed has a deep meaning. This scene is very beautiful!"
"I really wondered who is creating such a thing, who are the people working on this who give everything of themselves."
"This is not something that we directly know from the 13th century. We actually know the limited things that are in the scriptures and now it's been turned into movement! They really give all of themselves into these legends and stories. It's so impressive that it's unbelievable."
Von Garnier continued, "I always like it when I'm so touched by a meditative experience. I only wanted to sit and digest what was there because it goes so deep. You don't want to go into the rush of the applause. There is something that really draws you in. It's enormous."
She also noted her feelings that Chinese Spectacular was able to correctly balance the positive and the negative, "It was entrancingly beautiful, entrancingly beautiful! In Western ballet, they always show negative scenes of personal conflicts and such things. They never show what harmony actually is."
"Here we can see some scenes that are critical or that make you think and that there is suffering in our world. But it's always harmonious. You will always be pleased to remember it. The ballet always shows something that is disturbing and what we see here is harmonizing," she said.
Feeds