“I bought my wife tickets for Christmas to come down and see the show and it was inspiring. I just loved the visual acts, the young and innocent faces. It was inspiring also in terms of just the messages that were coming across about awareness and Dafa Law,” he said.
Mr. French is the principal in a consulting firm that works in organizational development, and he said the nature of what he does is similar to some of the themes in the show.
“The themes here were very close to what I like to do at work. Awareness is the first step towards change and learning and this was a learning experience for me, and I enjoyed it,” he said.
“I also enjoyed the two hosts. I thought the way they worked together—she was so graceful. It was just a pleasure to be here. We really love the cultural differences,” Mr. French said, adding that they live in a suburb of Toronto with a large Chinese community.
He thought the tenor, Hong Ming, “was unbelievable—the tenor kind of blew you off your seat. My ear was vibrating. When he was singing he was just so clear and crisp, so he was quite enjoyable. I don’t usually like tenors, male singers aren’t my thing, but I thought he was quite impressive. And you know what, the pianist she was very pure, and always knew the touch. Always had her hand on the piano and such ... She probably could have played even more or even a solo part of her own. I thought she was very good.”
Mr. French said he was particularly impressed by the piece, “Mulan Joins the Battle.”
“I forget the name of the skit where the women went to war—I loved her. She was just so absolutely, so kind of herself, yet so proud and graceful. She really stood out for me.”
The DPA orchestra combines the great classical traditions of Chinese and Western music. All the compositions are original and created to complement each individual dance. The mix of Chinese and Western instruments in the orchestra took a bit of getting used to for Mr. French.
“As my ears sort of tuned into it I was listening to every different instrument. I thought it was great. The music was wonderful but it took me some time to get used to it though. My ear wasn’t accustomed to it right away.”
He described the sound of the two-stringed erhu as “gorgeous. I would love to go out and buy a CD with that on it.”
He said the show inspired him, an emotion he’s not that accustomed to feeling.
“I’m not usually moved by many things. I am a kind of contained person. Inspiring to me is sort of reaching out to others and that is the word I would use. That is my emotional reaction — just inspiration, and somehow proud to be Canadian. I don’t know what that was as they sort of went back and forth in different languages and that. This is a pretty great country to be in where we can do this and appreciate different cultures.”
He said DPA’s portrayal of Chinese traditional culture was a new experience for him.
“It was quite new for me so I was really listening to learn new things. And I thought, ‘you know what, this is kind of like the other things I heard in terms of different religions. Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism or Christianity have a lot of the same messages, and you know we are all people. We have some of the same fears, same hope, same dreams.’ That is what I came away with.
“That was not an eye opener, but a validation that we are people and are here to have relationships with one another, to do things, to be hopeful, to have children and love each other. Those are the kinds of feeling I came away with.”
Mr. French is involved with the arts community in his area, and he said he would “love to see more of this stuff in our own community. There is nothing I could say that I didn’t like, so it was just absolutely great to be here. I’ll be back next year.”
For more information visit Divineperformingarts.org
