TORONTO—For fashion designer and businessman Mr. Liu, Divine Performing Arts continued to be a well-spring of inspiration.
Mr. Liu attended his second Divine Performing Arts show at John Bassett Theatre on Thursday night, the same theatre at which he first saw the dance company perform last September.
“The show makes you more alive in the boring Toronto winter,” he said. “It’s my pleasure to be here again.”
Last September Mr. Liu was also impressed by the show, describing it as “spectacular.”
“I was surprised—honestly. I can only say—stunning, I must repeat again—I’m stunned. It’s beautiful, they are very professional, the dancers are excellent, the costumes are beautiful and I loved them” he had said.
At that time he said the costumes gave him many ideas for his next collection.
“I’m going to design more Chinese style dresses and outfits. They looked fantastic. Tonight I’m going to go home and go back to my office and just close the windows, close the doors, and just start drawing,” he had said.
And it seems that that is exactly what he did.
After attending Divine Performing Arts 2009 World Tour on Thursday, Liu was asked if he had gone forward with the inspiration he got from the previous show. He said he had.
“To be honest, I did get some ideas from that [show],” he said.
“I already added a lot of Chinese elements in my next two seasons of the fashion.”
Liu has three fashion lines in Tokyo, and many high-profile retailers carry his designs. He is not sure whether his next two lines will premier in New York, Tokyo, or perhaps even Toronto, but he promised that people would be able to see the influence.
“Like this time I really liked the chopstick dance [Mongolian Chopsticks] and to be honest, I’m not just seeing the dance, I am seeing the costume too, and of course the beautiful ladies. The design is very nice, it gives me a lot of ideas,” he said, mentioning the colour combinations and materials in particular.
“But like I said, if you see my next two fashion shows coming in spring and summer for 2009 and fall and winter 2010, you will see a lot of Chinese style ideas from me.”
The dance Liu referred to, Mongolian Chopsticks, shows the vivacity of ethnic dance from China’s hinterlands. The charm of the region’s sprawling plains is mirrored by the passionate warmth of the dancers, who use bundles of chopsticks to greet guests.
Mr. Liu humbly says he doesn’t feel quite worthy of the title of fashion designer despite his success and shares credit with some of the other designers he works with. Besides clothes he also designs accessories and jewelry. The Ontario Ministry of Education has also included Mr. Liu among seven Canadian designers that will be studied by students in a new fashion course for grades 11 and 12.
Mr. Liu said this year’s show seemed softer than the show he saw in September. He added that the dancers have obviously practiced a lot to gain many difficult skills.
“The dance step, the dancing skill is amazing,” he said.
“I really liked the spring dance, especially when you go outside and see all the snow, and it’s so cold but then when we come here it’s such a nice place and we see all this color and spring time,” he said.
That dance, Welcoming Spring, features quick footwork, crisp movements, and stunning bursts of color.
Mr. Liu said Asian dance has a unique way to express an ancient culture that has a lot of depth.
“Don’t get me wrong I am not saying the European dancers are not good, they are professional. I see a lot of performance shows, because I love these kinds of shows. But this is just different, because of the cultural difference. You can see, especially the Chinese dance, is very unique and the way that they dance is different from other dance,” he said.
When asked how he would rank the show, Liu said it was “very good.”
Divine Performing Arts takes it’s inspiration from 5,000 years of Chinese culture and has many ethnic Chinese dances and dances depicting Chinese myths and legends. There are also dances that deal with issues in contemporary China as well as musical soloists and a live symphony orchestra that blends traditional Chinese and Western instruments.
The dance company will take to the stage six more times in Toronto before moving on to Montreal and New York.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Divine Performing Arts International Tour.
For more information, please see divineperformingarts.org
