MELBOURNE,Australia—Kirstie Marshall OAM, a Victorian State Member of Parliament elected in 2002 and six-time Australian skier of the year, spoke glowingly of the first Divine Performing Arts show in Melbourne's State Theatre in the Art's Centre on Friday night 28 March.
Asked if she enjoyed the show, the former aerial skiing champion said: "Absolutely! I mean the colours and music, everything combined, it's certainly inspiring—and I just want to leap out of my chair but I'm just a bit too old now."
An ex-gymnast who moved to aerial skiing and subsequently won more than 40 World Cup medals that included 17 gold medals, Ms Marshall had particular appreciation of the poise and control of the leaps the performers made.
"I think for me, anything with athleticism in it [are the better parts]. I think my background obviously, being in acrobatic sports, there is so much I can see. I'm able to recognise the actual technique and skill that goes into it—they make it look so amazing.
"I'm quite sure that everyone sitting in the audience was probably quite unaware of how difficult what they're doing is. The height they're reaching when they're doing leaps and the finesse; everything from their toes to their fingertips—it's beautiful—it's gorgeous to watch.
"And well, I'm quite un-coordinated, so again I'm inspired to attempt. But I certainly recognise just the difficulty in all of that to combine weighing the drums, again, with that athleticism—it's just brilliant, it's just terrific."
The Member of Parliament for Forest Hill, perceived the performers as more than dancers, repeatedly admiring the athleticism required.
"They're athletes. You can put it basically that they're dancers, but the reality is they're athletes. They're very finely tuned. It takes an incredible amount of work and effort and of course, natural skill, so I look at them as just finely tuned athletes. From one athlete to another there is always a sense of respect and admiration for that."
The ease of execution of the performance was also cause for the 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympian to reflect upon the dancer's expertise.
"When I was skiing, people would always say: 'It's as if skis are attached to your feet, they're not separate to you.' Everything that they are doing as well—it flows so effortlessly. It is difficult to remember that they are actually doing something that is quite difficult, because they just have such a smooth way of extending every part of their body.
"The moment that I really love with the women, is when you see how their foot comes out and comes back for the step and then they sort of slowly speed it up. At one point you could look at their little feet go ticky-ticky-ticky-ticky and the upper part of their body is so perfectly still and poised—it's as if there's two different body parts that have been merged together, so, I just love it."
Ms Marshall enjoyed the narrative and the stories of the dances.
"I think the interesting part is to know that there is a story behind every dance, and the challenge for me is to understand exactly what part of the story is being expressed at those moments because of course expression through dance is very different to verbal expression. I love it, I think it is an incredibly entertaining and yet educational part of our lives. I encourage everyone to see it. It's brilliant!"
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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