TORONTO—Mr. Worden, the director of marketing and advertising for a large optical company, and his wife, a professional photographer, both raved about the Divine Performing Arts opening show in Toronto’s John Bassett Theatre on Thursday.
“The costumes were fantastic, the colors were very beautiful, the combination of colors very beautiful—the bright oranges, the purple, the silver—I really appreciated how it all came together,” said Mr. Worden.
Mrs. Worden said, “The costumes were just great, those beautiful sleeves and so beautifully colorful. I like the way [the costumes] flowed and blended with the dancer’s movements just perfectly.”
The show also features three soloists: a baritone, a tenor and a soprano. Although they sing in Chinese, the lyrics of the songs are translated and projected onto the animated backdrop.
“I was glad they had the translation of the words on the backdrop so that I could read and think about them. They reminded me that the riches that you obtain from this life are only good for this life. That you have many, many other lives … so there's other value that are more important than money, riches and material things. This is a very good message,” said Mr. Worden.
“We are not exposed to a lot of oriental culture so we learned a lot and found it very interesting. And it seemed to me that there were various movements that were similar to a lot of other cultures,” he added.
“You know Italians went to China and they discovered many things that they brought back with them. I'm sure Russian and other countries also went to China and brought back dances and other Chinese traditions to their country. But the dancing was tremendous tonight—their energy is fantastic and you could feel that every one was full of energy, very full of life.”
“The Udumbara’s Bloom” was one of the couple’s favourite performances.
According to Buddhist scripture, the reappearance of the Udumbara flower—which blossoms only once every 3000 years—signifies that a great sage or enlightened being has come to the world to impart a higher teaching. The delicately bejeweled dancers show grace, fluidity and balance as they portray petals of the blossoming flower.
Mr. Worden said he also enjoyed the “Dance of the Yi.”
“The costumes were really really nice. Very well done,” he said. In this dance, the dancers exude joyfulness with rainbow-like skirts and playful hand gestures.
The couple said they will return next year with their young daughter who is passionate about the arts and who, they are sure, would learn a lot from a production such as this. “She would have just loved this,” said her mother.
Divine Performing Arts 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