BOSTON—Ms. Ulissey, a celebrated dancer, and Professor Schoch, a geology scholar known for his research findings about ancient Egyptian structures, were among the audience members who enjoyed the Divine Performing Arts 2009 World Tour performance at the Boston Opera House on Saturday night.
Before taking up teaching at a local prestigious university, Ms. Ulissey was a performer for 20 years. She spent almost 10 years performing classically, and another 10 years on Broadway. She was in the original Broadway cast of The Phantom of the Opera, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Red Shoes, among others. She has also supervised and performed with the world-touring production of The Phantom of the Opera.
“It’s very visually rich in color and music and spectacle and movement,” Ms. Ulissey said about Divine Performing Arts.
She said the performance is in some ways similar to ballet and classical dance, naming “the gracefulness of the arm movements, the ethereal quality of the movement, the physicality,” yet it is different.
Perhaps no other art form in the world can boast such strong expressive qualities and diversity of technique as classical Chinese dance. Classical Chinese dance is a unique art form that dates back over 5,000 years of China’s divine-inspired cultures. It has its own complete set of training methods in foundational skills, a strict regimen for perfecting bearing and form, and means of training for skill sets such as jumps, turns, and spins, as well as extremely demanding aerial techniques, culminating in an enormous dance system. The aerial movements of classical Chinese dance contain a wealth of high-dives, dexterous leaps, and diverse spins.
Ms. Ulissey said this performance aims to “convey culture,” which distinguishes it from some other performances. “This is trying to tell you of a culture that spans a large amount of time. And so it brings in spirituality, it brings in physicality, it brings in many things, whereas some [other] performances target, narrow what they want to say. I think this is a very broad message,” she said.
Coming to see the show with Ms. Ulissey was Dr. Schoch, a professor of geology. His research for the past 20 years has been focused on ancient cultures and structures, starting first with ancient Egypt, since a lot of their structures were made of stones.
“I’ve been looking at ancient cultures and civilizations around the world, and this was absolutely fascinating to me because it spans 5,000 years of history,” he said passionately.
“And I’m looking at this, I know a little bit … it’s something I’ve already become interested in and continue to take more and more interest in.”
Dr. Schoch, who has been featured in TV documentaries and has authored different books on ancient Egyptian structures, is famous for his research arguing that the Great Sphinx is much older than what is commonly thought and other theories proposing that the pyramids were part of an ancient global culture.
Besides the “beauty,” the “dancing,” and the “storytelling,” what stood out more than anything for Dr. Schoch were the similarities he saw in the show and in many ancient cultures elsewhere around the world.
“It seems like there’s always commonality. The concept brings us of being divinely inspired, coming from the gods—we saw that here. We started that, we went back to that. And in many ways I couldn’t help but think about the whole concept of ancient wisdom,” he said.
The Divine Performing Arts 2009 World Tour show starts with the performance The Five Millennia Begin. In this piece, divine beings assemble in Heaven to prepare for their descent to Earth, where they will impart the very gift of culture. Among them is the Yellow Emperor of Chinese lore along with his royal court, who take the stage following a thunderous welcoming.
The show ends with the performance Knowing the True Picture Offers Ultimate Hope, which revisits the theme explored in the opening dance; that the glorious culture of antiquity was brought by higher lives and meant to sustain the moral integrity of humankind. In this piece, the cosmic and earthly merge in a powerful vision of renewal, and higher lives are again seen entering into the world and assuming human form, this time to save people as history’s final page is turned.
“Sometimes it’s expressed that way, sometimes it expresses the perennial philosophy. Sometimes in Egypt or elsewhere we’ll say, you talk about returning to the source. But where is that inspiration coming from?
“And, really, the connections between all humanity—I mean, this to me was, yes, about Chinese culture and history and reviving the traditions, but it was, really, I thought a lesson for all humanity. I mean I don’t think this was really just focused on one country, one nation. In fact, I mean, even from this if one did not know, China is such a huge country with such a long history with so many different ethnic groups. And I thought that really spoke to the commonalities of all of this. So I found that absolutely inspiring.”
Dr. Schoch continued, “I thought all of it was beautiful,” pointing out the performance Welcoming Spring as an example. In this piece, quick footwork, crisp movements, and stunning bursts of color form the basis of the performers’ fan dance.
“Just beautiful movements,” he said.
He also pointed out with a chuckle that as a geologist, he enjoyed the dance with the rockslide, Monk Ji Gong Abducts the Bride. One of the most beloved figures from Chinese history, Monk Ji Gong has long been remembered for his unorthodox, and seemingly crazy manner of doing good works. In this tale, he saunters into a village wedding scene to warn its inhabitants of an impending rockslide.
"But what actually struck me the most, especially the last scene where you had returning, you come full circle,” he said, again referring to the last piece, Knowing the True Picture Offers Ultimate Hope.
“And I couldn’t help but think of all the cultures that have generally, actually all the ancient civilizations I’m familiar with, they have some concept of coming from the gods a golden age at the beginning when the divine and the human were intermingling, and the concept of going back to that point—reaching back to that, reaching out to the physical, material world, but joining the spiritual and the material. I really found it amazing, all these commonalities,” he said.
Joining back into the conversation, Ms. Ulissey added that the “large circles spinning” in the background of the last piece reminded her of the large expanses of time that our earth has undergone.
“It just touched on a lot of things, it was very inspiring,” Dr. Schoch concluded.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Divine Performing Arts 2009 World Tour. For more information, please see DivinePerformingArts.org
