Choreography by Divine Performing Arts
A New Tang Dynasty Television Presentation
at the Sony Centre
January 18-20, 2008

    The advertising is more than a little misleading, promising, as it does, a spectacular entertainment drawn from Chinese culture and tradition to nourish and rejuvenate the soul. However, the show (that originated in New York and has gone on tour across North America), while spectacular in its costuming and some impressive digital video backgrounds, is a rather tame and inordinately long fusion of dance, acrobatics, music, song, and drumming—with a lot of political propaganda aimed specifically at the Chinese Communist government’s persecution of the Falun Gong sect. At times, it seemed to last as long as the last Tang Dynasty, even though the two bilingual emcees (a Caucasian male and a Chinese female) tried their best to add a little humor to what was really a pitch for Falun Gong philosophy. Actually, the propaganda started with the private reception prior to the show, when tenor Guimin Guan (who would later sing “Holy Falun King” about a mythical king in Indian lore who was said to turn a dharmic wheel) spoke about the health benefits of the divine arts as practised in the show. Virtue in any form is commendable, of course, but the opening number, “Descent of the Celestial Kings,” with a god in his chariot racing down to earth where Buddhists, Taoists, and Hallmark Card angels with halos and wings mixed in a sort of weirdly incongruous Kitschy Hollywood movie.

   Ethnic curiosities (Chopstick dance, drummers of the Tang Court, Mongolian Bowl dance, ladies of the Manchu Court executing a slow walk on signature raised shoes, Mongolian herdsmen, Chinese visionaries) were really more an expression of tourist attraction than substantial cultural tradition or soul-stirring resources, and repetitions of water imagery (though beautifully expressed in “Water Sleeves” by flowing blue silk attached to fluttering white fans) and incessant Falun Gong sentiments created a sort of glazed tedium. The vocalists (sopranos Min Jiang and Bai Xue, alto Jiansheng Yang, and tenor Guimin Guan) and pianist Yan Li had power, though the over-amplified sound sometimes created a piercing shrillness. The lyrics didn’t help. Their composers showed a tin ear that compounded their leaden heaviness of lyric. Lines such as “Don’t be gullible before the one-voice system” or “Dear ones who see not clear” are hardly the stuff of timeless musicality. The dance choreography was mediocre in its display of rudimentary fundamentals of bearing and form, though the dancers of both sexes were gorgeous to behold, and the drumming, while loud and performed by sexy, athletic young men, was no match for the Japanese Kodo drummers. So intent was the production on scoring political points—however drearily prosaic—that the one crucial thing missing was any sign of divine inspiration.

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