EDMONTON—Stuart Houston, the Mayor of Spruce Grove, and his wife, Debra, enjoyed the essence of China's ancient history portrayed in the Chinese Spectacular which they attended at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium on Monday.
"I find it very interesting, it's a new cultural experience for me as a Canadian to see this tremendous performance — to find out the culture of China — I wasn't very aware of it," Mayor Houston said.
He said the history of the Chinese people "is very beautiful, something we didn't notice before, we've never seen anything like this."
Mayor Houston especially enjoyed the drumming acts, Drummers of the Tang Court and Victory Drums.
"I especially enjoyed the drummers, it got my blood flow going. I just liked the way they performed, and I liked the beat that they did with the drums, it was an exciting performance. It seemed to show the history of civilizations, where they had wars, in the background it showed a scene of many people, many soldiers."
In discussing the value of a traditional Chinese culture show in western society, the mayor said that "the true value is to show western people something about the civilization and the people of China because China is now becoming a very emerging country in the world, and everybody is very aware of China. And when we see the beauty of the Chinese people…we didn't realize it was so beautiful, and we're quite enjoying it."
Mrs. Houston was equally impressed with the Spectacular.
"A beautiful, diverse culture and just gorgeous, gorgeous entertainment," she said. From the dancers to the drummers, the beauty, the elegance of all the dancing—just a very nice portrayal of the story lines with the dance."
"The prison story [The Risen Lotus Flower] was amazing, I thought it was very moving, that was just an amazing, moving story I loved. It's a beautiful way to show a story, without any words, with the dance and the portrayal — it was gorgeous."
The Risen Lotus Flower piece depicts a scene in which a Falun Gong practitioner is being persecuted because of her persevering belief in the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. "We know of Falun Gong, the persecution of the people that try the traditional Falun Gong. And we know that in China it's not allowed, but over here it was good to show," said Mayor Houston.
He said they hope to go to China one day "and see the people there".
"I think it would be beautiful to have this [show in China]. It would be good to have freedom of expression in [China], but I'm not sure if the government of the day over there would allow such a thing to happen. It seems they have to keep a bit of a tight control on things."
The mayor added that his favourite piece was "the blue dance" — Nymphs of the Sea.
"Just the movements of the material, showing the ocean and the beauty of, it was very beautiful. There was another really good one too... the most beautiful dance I saw so far was the one when they had the purple and white [Mongolian Bowl Dance], and they had the shimmer, that was...the most beautiful one."
Mrs. Houston said she liked all the dances, but most especially Lady of the Moon.
"I just thought it was a beautiful story."
For information about upcoming Divine Performing Arts shows, please visit:
www.BestChineseShows.com.
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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