OTTAWA—Ms. Coderre, who attended the Divine Performing Arts (DPA) matinee on Saturday at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, was impressed by the lavish, colourful production.
A lighting designer, Ms. Coderre is particularly knowledgeable about set lighting and the interaction between the performance on stage and its background. She spoke with The Epoch Times during the intermission.
“I like it when there’s a very close unity between the costumes and the background so that you have that sense of color and the color is included in the background,” she said.
“They’ve managed to catch that nuance, I really enjoyed that.”
The DPA shows feature original costumes bursting with brilliant colors and an animated state-of-the-art backdrop for each number.
“For instance, the costume that I enjoyed the most was the ‘Flowing Sleeves’ dance. The background had just the right colours in it to be working very well with that.”
DPA is a New York-based performance company founded by leading Chinese dancers, choreographers, and musicians that seeks to revive China’s traditional culture and present consummate beauty.
Ms. Coderre particularly enjoyed the telling of ancient Chinese legends and the stories about the current situation in China through classical Chinese dance.
“I also liked the theatricality of the stories,” she said. “For ‘The Monkey King Triumphs’ where you understand what the story is and the story of the father that’s been persecuted for his religious beliefs…It’s very interesting for me to watch the way they can tell the story though the dance.”
“Persecuted on a Sacred Path” tells the tale of a father persecuted for practicing Falun Dafa, a traditional spiritual practice rooted in ancient Chinese culture that was banned by the Chinese regime in 1999.
“In my culture, I’m not persecuted for my religion and I am obviously aware of the persecution that’s been going on in China. I guess in a way this is giving me a little bit more awareness than I would have had from just reading about it and hearing things.”
“I guess in a way this is giving me a little bit more awareness than I would have had from just reading about it and hearing things.”
The two emcees added an educational aspect to the show. As well as entertaining the audience and explaining Chinese classical dance, one of the things they talked about was how healing can be facilitated by music.
“I was really, really quite happy to hear the correlation between medicine and music, you know, so I’m learning something from the commentators. I can really see the connection between music and culture and medicine.”
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Divine Performing Arts International Tour.
For more information, please see divineperformingarts.org
