LINKOPING, Sweden—Stockholm poet Bi Rimdahl had much to say about the Chinese Spectacular after the performance in Linkoping on Thursday night, and it was all good.
"I am a Swedish poet, and I write about the truth, compassion, patience, everything that was in the show, the freedom of the inner spirit—the right to the inner spirit. Amazing that that was in this show! Wonderful, fantastic! Fantastic message. Very beautiful.
"Also the freedom thanks to the discipline, there's a discipline in art and in music and in dancing and to see the energy from the performance, wonderful. Much more than I could believe. "I came from Stockholm and now I am happy there will be a performance on April 3, 'cause my granddaughter wants to go with me and now I can take her. I want to show her this—the spirit of the true China, wonderful!"
Ms. Rimdahl could not distinguish her favourite performance, but found the drums very powerful.
"I can feel all the power in the drums, for example, I can really understand why they are holy, why they are sacred and spiritual because they give you energy. They were not loud all over the place because they're so powerful. Everything, every special song, the text, the song, the dancing," she said.
"Fantastic, very powerful, very good. Thank you very much."
Her husband, Ulf Lundberg, a teacher, also enjoyed the Spectacular. He commented on the costumes, "Nice dresses and so on. Colourful. Very colourful."
Ms. Rimdahl continued, "Yes the dance on Tibet was extremely powerful, I have a Tibetan dog (maybe, he was from the mountain). I love that they brought in the folklore, the real, the pure thing, wonderful. Fantastic."
She also gave the singing and the lyrics rave reviews, "I love the text in the first song, saying that the text, how we must break down… how the goodness, the good, must win, which it always does, it always did. And we will punish the mean system and the goodness we'll celebrate. I write about that."
Mr Lundberg added, "And look for the truth."
Ms. Rimdahl said she felt connected to China after seeing the Spectacular and her expectations of the show were exceeded.
"I wasn't expecting this. I thought it would be more spectacular—not so meaningful, not so spiritual, not so loving, not so big, not so wise, it had also lots of wisdom in it. I didn't expect that. I thought it would be more like a circus, like a show. It had much more message. I'm happy that you'd dare to—that people can do it. It's wonderful. I'm glad Sweden invited you. I'm happy."
They had heard about the Chinese embassy trying to interfere with the show and felt they had to come, because they knew it must be special.
I read it in the newspaper, said Ms. Rimdahl, "And I thought, 'No this we have to protest against'...We decided to go to this performance because there is no chance that anybody should tell us that we are not allowed to see it, and we knew it would be something very special actually, but it really was much, much, much more fantastic than that we ever could expect."
She said they all had goose bumps "all the time."
"We were so taken! In fact we were so touched inside, by the heart and then the hair goes "Whooo!" it's more than cheer, it's much deeper, it's bigger."
"I'm always interested in the pure, like the pure art. Art is the same all over the world. Art is from the heart. And there's a connection between different art forms when they are real. And this was real art."
Gerda Lundberg, who owns an aromatherapy company, was also part of the group of six friends attending the Spectacular . She said, "My biggest interest is the connection of body and heart and soul and spirit, spirituality. For me, the Chinese art, as I saw it today, is really spirituality on a very, very authentic, very touching…for me it's the biggest way of reaching balance and harmony. It was such a harmony with all the colours and the movement and the words. Everything. It was really wonderful."
She said the pressure from the Chinese embassy warning people not to attend was why they attended.
For information about upcoming Divine Performing Arts shows, please visit: www.DivinePerformingArts.org.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Chinese Spectacular. For our complete coverage please visit: http://en.epochtimes.com/features/dpa2008/
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