“Tradition is really the sum total of human experience. It’s what people have learned over the course of generations of time, proving certain kinds of practices or beliefs or values to be useful,” he said.

“There’s a famous writer that calls tradition the democracy of the dead. The idea being that people who’ve lived in the past were no less intelligent, no less wise, no less experienced than we are.”

“What happens with communism, or other kinds of ideologies that try to sweep away tradition is essentially you’re throwing knowledge into the ocean. You’re just dumping it away,” he said. “We always have a lot to learn from tradition, and when systems have fought, whether it be communism or fascism or other kinds of modern ideologies attempt to sweep away all of the wisdom of the past, it leaves everyone ignorant.”

“I always like to see dance performances with live orchestras. It gives so much more meaning and power to a performance. What I particularly find interesting about this performance is the obvious mixture of western instruments, Chinese instruments, Western musical style, Chinese musical style. It creates a sum that is greater than the parts,” he said.

“I’m a tap dance teacher, I’m particularly interested in rhythms, and I appreciate the music allowing these different ethnic and folk dances to illustrate different kinds of rhythms, and different kinds of patterns.”

“Music can bring you to tears, music can make you laugh, music can make you feel, music can make you angry,” he said. “You see in a lot of that, in this performance, you see a variety of different emotions. The piece that involves the modern-day story about the daughter of the surgeon. There’s some music in there that creates delight at the first part of the story, but later in the story it makes you angry.”

“I’m just fascinated with the techniques. Some of it is similar to the western ballet that I’ve studied in the past, and some of it is very different, particularly the arm movements. And so I just loved the performance,” he said.