(Clearwisdom.net) I went to the CHINESE NEW YEARS SPECTACULAR- MYTHS AND LEGENDS at Radio City Music Hall. Wow! A stage full of beautiful women in gorgeous costumes as angels, then forty women in silky green spinning orange cloths like wood nymphs, a Mulan ballet with a beautiful acrobatic woman dancer and many men as warriors, lyric dance with uniform movement by a dozen women, herding on the Mongolian Plains by graceful male dancers to Khatchaturian-type music, etc. The costumes are beautiful, the huge scenic projected backdrops are inspired - brilliant, the lighting is perfect. The dancers are well trained, and the dancing is ballet-based with Chinese movements and gymnastics stirred in. The stories are simple tales told through mime-ish action in dance including a stunning piece about an artist who wants to create a thousand images. Interspersed with the action are several Western style singers and a lovely tune on a two-stringed instrument. Then there is the politics: these Chinese performers are American or Canadian. In China the practice o f Falun Gong, a physical meditation, is outlawed and persecuted. There is a number vividly protesting this, saying that the persecutors will end up in hell, and the victims in heaven. And there is one that merely says that the Communist government of China must be destroyed. That's when I realized that this show didn't originate in China. There is a smash finale with drums and trumpets and flags - it was inspiring - I wanted to march into war. All in all, a visit to a magical Shangrila.
Editor's note: Richmond Shepard is one of America's most brilliant mimes. He writes to Performing Arts Insider magazine.
